ideation reference process model for the early phase of

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Ideation reference process model for the early phase ofinnovation

Martin Neumann

To cite this version:Martin Neumann. Ideation reference process model for the early phase of innovation. Chemical andProcess Engineering. Université de Grenoble, 2013. English. �NNT : 2013GRENI099�. �tel-01294036�

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THÈSE

Pour obtenir le grade de

DOCTEUR DE L’UNIVERSITÉ DE GRENOBLE

Spécialité : Génie Industriel

Arrêté ministériel : 7 août 2006

Présentée par

Martin NEUMANN Thèse dirigée par Pr. Daniel BRISSAUD et codirigée par Dr. Andreas RIEL préparée au sein du Laboratoire G-SCOP dans l'École Doctorale I-MEP2

Processus d’idéation de référence pour la phase amont de l’innovation –

Ideation Reference Process Model for the Early Phase of Innovation Thèse soutenue publiquement le 28 janvier 2013, devant le jury composé de :

Pr. Albert ALBERS KIT Karlsruhe, Allemagne, Rapporteur

Pr. Denis CAVALLUCCI INSA Strasbourg, France, Rapporteur

Pr. Rainer STARK TU Berlin/Frauenhofer IPK, Allemagne, Examinateur

Dr. Daniel LLERENA MdC HDR, UPMF Grenoble, France, Examinateur

Pr. Daniel BRISSAUD Grenoble INP, France, Directeur de thèse

Dr. Andreas RIEL IdR HDR, EMIRAcle c/o Grenoble INP, Co-encadrant de thèse

3

Acknowledgements

During the development of this thesis, I have worked with a great number of

people whose different contributions deserve special mention. It is a pleasure to

convey my gratitude to them all in my acknowledgment.

I would like to acknowledge and extend my heartfelt gratitude to my

supervisors, Prof. Daniel Brissaud and Dr. Andreas Riel, for their trust in my

abilities. I highly appreciate their enormous support, guidance and advices.

Besides to my supervisors, I would also like to give special thanks to the

members of the defence committee, Prof. Albert Albers, Prof. Denis Cavallucci,

Prof. Rainer Stark and Ass. Prof. Daniel Llerena for their acceptance to be in

the jury, and for having critically studied my thesis.

I would like to thank the KSPG Automotive Group for having made this thesis

possible. Especially, I would like to thank Dr. Hans-Joachim Esch, CTO of

KSPG AG, for his support and his interest in this work. Also, I would like to

thank my superior Dipl.-Ing. Heinrich Dismon, Vice President Advanced

Engineering of KSPG AG. He has always seen the need of creating an ideation

process, and through his contribution this work gained very much in quality.

And I would like to thank Prof. Eduard Köhler, Vice President New Propulsion

Technologies of KSPG AG, for discussing the topic of E-mobility and his

invaluable contributions to validating the feasibility of the ideation process.

Additionally, I would like to thank all my colleagues and friends from Pierburg

GmbH and Pierburg Pump Technology GmbH who gave me a hand during this

research work. Thanks to everyone!

Also, I would like to thank Dr. Richard Messnarz, Chairman of the EuroSPI²

initiative, as well as Dr. Serhan Ili, Managing Director of ILI CONSULTING.

I would like to thank my parents Rosemarie and Josef Robert Neumann who

always believed in me. Also I would like to thank my relatives, family

Neulinger and family Spannbauer, for their support.

And finally, I deeply thank my beloved wife Kerstin for her enormous help and

patience. She is my most important motivation in life.

5

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements ............................................................................................ 3

Table of Contents ............................................................................................... 5

List of Abbreviations and Symbols ................................................................ 11

List of Figures .................................................................................................. 15

List of Tables .................................................................................................... 17

1 Introduction .............................................................................................. 19

1.1 Initial Situation ..................................................................................... 19

1.2 Research Problem ................................................................................. 20

1.3 Motivation ............................................................................................. 21

1.4 Scope ..................................................................................................... 22

1.5 Thesis Structure .................................................................................... 22

Part I: State of the Art ................................................................................... 25

2 Innovation Management ......................................................................... 27

2.1 The Definition of Innovation ................................................................ 27

2.2 The Dimensions of Innovation.............................................................. 29

2.2.1 Content Dimension .................................................................... 30

2.2.2 Subjectivity Dimension ............................................................. 31

2.2.3 Process Dimension ..................................................................... 32

2.2.4 Normative Dimension ................................................................ 34

2.3 The Challenges of Innovation Management ......................................... 35

2.4 Stakeholder Approach ........................................................................... 38

2.4.1 Defining the Stakeholders .......................................................... 38

Table of Contents

6

2.4.2 Managing the Stakeholders ........................................................ 40

2.5 Open Innovation .................................................................................... 42

2.6 Implications from this Chapter ............................................................. 44

3 Ideation...................................................................................................... 47

3.1 Defining Ideation .................................................................................. 47

3.1.1 Beyond Improving the Company ............................................... 48

3.1.2 Connection to Design Thinking ................................................. 50

3.1.3 Importance of the Early Phase of Innovation ............................. 51

3.2 Structuring Ideation ............................................................................... 53

3.2.1 Ideation as Part of the Early Phase of Innovation ...................... 53

3.2.2 The Holistic Front-End Model ................................................... 56

3.2.3 New Concept Development Model ............................................ 58

3.2.4 Probe and Learn Process ............................................................ 61

3.2.5 The Stage-Gate Process ............................................................. 63

3.3 Managing Ideation ................................................................................ 64

3.3.1 Creativity Freedom versus Structural Organisation ................... 64

3.3.2 Idea Sources Inside and Outside the Company .......................... 67

3.3.3 Knowledge and Learning ........................................................... 69

3.4 Implications from this Chapter ............................................................. 71

Part II: Creation of an Ideation Process ...................................................... 73

4 Conceptual Framework of the Research ............................................... 75

4.1 Point of Departure ................................................................................. 75

4.2 Research Question................................................................................. 76

4.3 Research Objectives .............................................................................. 77

4.4 Research Approach ............................................................................... 78

4.4.1 Selection of an Appropriate Research Design ........................... 78

4.4.2 The Role of the Researcher ........................................................ 79

4.4.3 Methodology .............................................................................. 80

Table of Contents

7

4.4.4 Multi-method Data Collection and Analysis ............................. 81

5 Ideation Process Model ........................................................................... 85

5.1 Literature Review ................................................................................. 85

5.1.1 Applied Method ......................................................................... 85

5.1.2 Findings ..................................................................................... 86

5.1.3 Recommendations for the Ideation Process Model ................... 95

5.2 Expert Interviews .................................................................................. 96

5.2.1 Applied Method ......................................................................... 96

5.2.2 Findings ................................................................................... 100

5.2.3 Recommendations for the Ideation Process Model ................. 108

5.3 Derivation of the Ideation Process Model .......................................... 108

5.3.1 Key Success Factors of the Ideation Process Model ............... 108

5.3.2 Global Structure of the Ideation Reference Process Model .... 110

5.4 The Prerequisite Phase ........................................................................ 112

5.4.1 Internal and External Analysis ................................................. 112

5.4.2 Innovation Strategy .................................................................. 114

5.4.3 Top Management Commitment ............................................... 115

5.4.4 Target Agreement and Resource Commitment ........................ 116

5.5 The Generation Phase ......................................................................... 116

5.5.1 Management of Stakeholders, Networks and Partners ............ 117

5.5.2 Ideation Tool Box .................................................................... 122

5.5.3 Guided Ideation........................................................................ 124

5.5.4 Wild Card Ideation .................................................................. 125

5.6 The Selection Phase ............................................................................ 125

5.6.1 Idea Communication ................................................................ 125

5.6.2 Idea Assessment ....................................................................... 127

5.6.3 Idea Transfer ............................................................................ 129

5.7 Considerations for Practical Implementation ..................................... 129

Table of Contents

8

Part III: Implementation of the Ideation Process at KSPG ..................... 131

6 Derivation of the KSPG-specific Ideation Process.............................. 133

6.1 Introduction to the Case Study ............................................................ 133

6.2 Description of the Current Situation in the Automotive Industry ....... 134

6.2.1 Framework and Basic Conditions ............................................ 134

6.2.2 Innovation Management Trends and Requirements ................ 136

6.3 Description of the Current Situation at KSPG .................................... 142

6.3.1 Corporate Organisation ............................................................ 142

6.3.2 Central Department Research and Technology ....................... 144

6.3.3 Existing Innovation Management at KSPG ............................. 145

6.4 Target Description of the Case Study ................................................. 148

6.5 Steps Towards the Process Derivation ................................................ 149

6.5.1 Overview .................................................................................. 149

6.5.2 Step 1: Identification of Priority Areas of Action.................... 150

6.5.3 Step 2: Determination of Organisational Elements ................. 151

6.5.4 Step 3: Design of a KSPG-specific Ideation Process ............... 157

6.5.5 Step 4: Feasibility Demonstration ............................................ 163

6.5.6 Step 5: Concept Proposal for the Introduction ......................... 164

6.5.7 Step 6: Accompaniment of the Introduction ............................ 166

6.5.8 Added Value for KSPG ........................................................... 167

Part IV: Global Conclusion ......................................................................... 171

7 Conclusion ............................................................................................... 173

8 Perspectives ............................................................................................. 175

References ....................................................................................................... 183

Appendix ......................................................................................................... 213

A1 – Interview Guideline for Expert Interviews ........................................ 215

A2 - Tools for the Implementation of the KSPG Ideation Process ........... 221

Decision Support Template ......................................................................... 221

Table of Contents

9

Innovation Board Meeting Protocol ............................................................ 224

KSPG Ideation Tool Box ............................................................................. 225

Résumé ............................................................................................................ 239

Processus d’idéation de référence pour la phase amont de l’innovation . 241

1 Motivation ........................................................................................... 241

2 Problématique ..................................................................................... 241

3 Contexte .............................................................................................. 242

4 Positionnement de la problématique ................................................... 244

4.1 La gestion de l’innovation ............................................................. 244

4.2 L’intégration des acteurs ............................................................... 248

4.3 L’idéation ...................................................................................... 249

5 Questions clés de recherche ................................................................ 252

6 Méthodologie de recherche ................................................................. 253

7 Résultats de recherche ........................................................................ 255

7.1 Recherche documentaire ............................................................... 255

7.2 Entrevues d’experts ....................................................................... 256

7.3 Les six facteurs clefs du succès de l’idéation ................................ 257

7.4 Le processus d’idéation de référence ............................................ 258

7.5 Implémentation et validation du processus chez KSPG ................ 260

8 Bilan des apports pour la recherche académique ................................ 264

9 Bilan des apports pour l’application industrielle ................................ 265

10 Perspectives pour la recherche académique ....................................... 265

10.1 Evaluation du processus de la phase floue amont ................... 265

10.2 Intégration des acteurs ............................................................. 266

10.3 Evaluation d’idées ................................................................... 267

10.4 Facteurs clés de succès ............................................................ 267

10.5 Influences culturelles ............................................................... 268

11 Perspectives pour l’application industrielle ........................................ 268

Table of Contents

10

11.1 Suivi intégral de l’introduction et application du processus .... 268

11.2 Application aux différents secteurs industriels ........................ 269

11

List of Abbreviations and Symbols

A1-5 Action No. 1-5

AD Advanced Development

ADP Advanced Development Process

AE Advanced Engineering

AG Public company (abbreviation of German

“Aktiengesellschaft“)

Art. Article

ASME American Society of Mechanical Engineers

B2B Business to Business

BF Germany Burkert Fahrzeugteile Germany

BVW Corporate Suggestion System (abbreviation of German

“Betriebliches Vorschlagswesen”)

CEO Chief Executive Officer

cf. Compare (abbreviation of Latin “confer”)

CIRP The International Academy for Production Engineering

(abbreviation of French “College International pour la

Recherche en Productique”)

CO2 Carbon dioxide

COM Commission

CPAS Comparative Performance Assessment Study

CT Computer Axial Tomography

CTO Chief Technical Officer

DIB Deutsches Institut für Betriebswirtschaft

DOI Digital Object Identifier

DUV German University Publishers (abbreviation of German

“Deutscher Universitäts-Verlag“)

e.g. For example (abbreviation of Latin “exempli gratia”)

Ed. Editor


12

EDI Electronic Data Interchange

Eds. Editors

EGR Exhaust gas recirculation

EIASM European Institute for Advanced Studies in Management

EMI Electric and Musical Industries Ltd.

E-Mobility Electro-mobility

et al. And others (abbreviation of Latin “et alli”)

etc. And so forth (abbreviation of Latin “et cetera”)

EU European Union

EUR Euro

EuroSPI2 European System & Software Process Improvement and

Innovation

FEV Forschungsgesellschaft für Energietechnik und

Verbrennungsmotoren

FFE Fuzzy front-end

GE General Electric

GmbH Limited company (abbreviation of German “Gesellschaft

mit beschränkter Haftung”)

GWV Gabler Verlag, Westdeutscher Verlag and Vieweg Verlag

i.e. That is (abbreviation of Latin “id est”)

IATF International Automotive Task Force

IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

IESE Institute of Higher Business Studies or International

Graduate School of Management (abbreviation of Spanish

“Instituto de Estudios Superiores de la Empresa”)

Inc. Incorporated

INSEAD Institut Européen d'Administration des Affaires

IP Ideation Process

IP Intellectual Property

IRI/CIMS Industrial Research Institute/Center for Innovation

Management Studies

ISF Innovation Strategy Framework

ISPIM International Society for Professional Innovation

Management

ISQI International Software Quality Institute

Iss. Issue


13

IT Information Technology

JPB Jeffrey Paul Baumgartner

KSPG Kolbenschmidt Pierburg

LCE Life Cycle Engineering

Ltd. Private company limited by shares

MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology

n Sample size

NCD New Concept Development

NCR National Cash Register

No. Number

NPD New Product Development

OEM Original Equipment Manufacturers

PDMA Product Development and Management Association

PDP Product Development Process

PPT Pierburg Pump Technology

R&D Research and Development

S1-6 Success Factor No. 1-6

SAM Society for Advancement of Management

SAPPHO Scientific Activity Predictor from Patterns with Heuristic

Origins

SME Small and medium sized enterprises

SMMT Society of Motor Manufacturers & Traders

SOQRATES Software Quality Rates for Maturity

SPICE Software Process Improvement and Capability

Determination

TRIZ Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (abbreviation of

Russian “Teoria reschenija isobretatjelskich sadatsch”)

VDA German Association of the Automotive Industry

(abbreviation of German “Verband Deutscher

Automobilindustrie”)

VoC Voice of the Customer

Vol. Volume

vs. Versus

zfwu Zeitschrift für Wirtschafts- und Unternehmensethik

15

List of Figures

Figure 1-1: Structure of this Thesis ............................................................ 23

Figure 2-1: Distinction between Patent, Invention and Innovation

[BAS1987] ............................................................................... 29

Figure 2-2: Types of Innovation according to Chandy and Tellis

[CHA1998]............................................................................... 31

Figure 2-3: The Innovation Value Chain [HAN2007] ................................ 33

Figure 2-4: A.T. Kearney's House of Innovation [DIE2006], [ENG2010]. 37

Figure 3-1: The Entire Innovation Process divided in Fuzzy Front-End,

NPD and Commercialisation [KOE2002]................................ 52

Figure 3-2: Front-End Model by Khurana and Rosenthal [KHU1998] ...... 57

Figure 3-3: The New Concept Development Model [KOE2002] ............... 59

Figure 3-4: Example of GE’s Probe and Learn Process [LYN1996] ......... 62

Figure 3-5: Stage-Gate Process of the Early Phase [COO1988] ................ 63

Figure 3-6: Dilemma between Creativity and Resource Efficiency in the

Fuzzy Front-End [SAN2007] ................................................... 65

Figure 3-7: Uncertainty Matrix, related Innovation Strategies and Process

Models [VER2007b], [LYN1998b] ......................................... 66

Figure 3-8: Ideation Matrix: Internal and External Idea Collection and

Generation [BUL2008] ............................................................ 67

Figure 3-9: Process of Ideation Inclusive Methods [BUL2008] ................. 69

Figure 3-10: The Process of Knowledge Creation and Innovation

[DEV2010] ............................................................................... 70

List of Figures

16

Figure 4-1: Conceptual Framework of the Research Approach ................. 81

Figure 4-2: Interdependencies of the Data Gathering for the Research ...... 82

Figure 5-1: Literature Map for the Literature Review ................................ 86

Figure 5-2: Ideation Reference Process Model ......................................... 111

Figure 5-3: Integration of Stakeholders in the Ideation Process ............... 118

Figure 5-4: The Magic Ideation Quadrant Diagram [COO2008] ............. 123

Figure 6-1: Open Innovation at Johnson Controls [JOH2012] ................. 137

Figure 6-2: Changing Supply Chains in Automotive Supplier Industry

[KUR2004] ............................................................................. 139

Figure 6-3: Divisional Structure of KSPG Automotive Group ................. 143

Figure 6-4: Organisation KSPG Central Department Research and

Technology from August 2012 .............................................. 144

Figure 6-5: Current Innovation management at KSPG according to the

Innovation Value Chain [NEU2012]...................................... 145

Figure 6-6: The Process Cycle of the Innovation Database [NEU2011c] 147

Figure 6-7: Origins of ideas (n=437 patent applications at Pierburg and

PPT) [NEU2012] .................................................................... 152

Figure 6-8: Customer Teams help capitalise on Customer Ideas

[NEU2011c] ........................................................................... 157

Figure 6-9: KSPG-specific Ideation Process – C3 Ideation Process (IP) .. 158

Figure 6-10: KSPG-specific Ideation Process embedded in the entire

Innovation Process ................................................................. 161

Figure 8-1: Criteria for the Evaluation of Innovation Success [HAU2011]

................................................................................................ 180

17

List of Tables

Table 2-1: Innovation Process Model by Thom [THO1980] and

[BRE2007] ............................................................................... 32

Table 2-2: Contrasting Principles of Closed and Open Innovation

[CHE2003] ............................................................................... 44

Table 3-1: Studies confirming the Impact of the Front-End on NPD

[HEL2009] ............................................................................... 53

Table 3-2: Comparison between Front-End and Downstream of the

Innovation Process [GLO2011], [HER2007b], [KOE2001] .... 55

Table 3-3: Possible Sources of Ideas [BUL2008] ..................................... 68

Table 5-1: Success Factors of New Product Development [ERN2002] .... 91

Table 5-2: Best Practices for Front-end Success [KHU1998] .................. 93

Table 5-3: Seven Key Principles at work in Highly Innovative Companies

[ZIE1997], [KOE2002] ............................................................ 94

Table 5-4: Survey Design of External Expert Interviews .......................... 98

Table 5-5: Mapping of the Key Success Factors with the Phases of the

Ideation Reference Process Model......................................... 111

Table 5-6: Overview of Internal Stakeholders’ Participation in the Ideation

Process ................................................................................... 120

Table 5-7: Overview of External Stakeholders’ Participation in the

Ideation Process ..................................................................... 121

Table 6-1: Archetypes of Innovation Management for Automotive

Suppliers [DAN2007] ............................................................ 141

List of Tables

18

Table 6-2: Overview of Internal Idea Sources at KSPG .......................... 153

Table 6-3: Overview of External Idea Sources at KSPG......................... 155

Table 6-4: Mapping of the identified Fields of Action with the phases of

the KSPG-specific Ideation Process ....................................... 159

Table 6-5: Added Value for Innovation Management after the Derivation

of a KSPG-specific Ideation Process ..................................... 169

19

1 Introduction

1.1 Initial Situation

The obligation to create innovations is inevitable to survive in business.

Companies operate today, more than ever before, in a very competing and

complex environment with rapidly changing market conditions. Thus, to play

an important role in the global market, it is necessary to increase the capacity of

innovations and combine customer needs, productivity and competitiveness in

the development of new products, services or business models. This especially

applies to companies that obtain their competitive advantages by technological

lead. Intrinsically, these companies are highly dependent on the evolution of the

importance of different technologies on the market. Therefore, they are obliged

to predict product strategies and technologies that guarantee their continuous

growth.

The automotive industry is one such sector. Consumer demands for comfort,

safety, fuel economy, etc., as well as international competition, and

environmental standards and regulations are the most important drivers of

automotive innovations. Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) and

suppliers have to innovate offensively to contend against this innovation

pressure. A fast reaction to this pressure to innovate is of crucial importance.

Consequently, OEMs and suppliers pay increasing attention to the deployment

of innovation management systems that focus on efficient and effective idea

generation, conversion, and diffusion. Particularly, the generation of ideas and

their capitalisation aspect are the decisive factors in this context. Innovation

management has to guarantee a holistic idea generation and selection to support

the company’s New Product Development (NPD) process with the continuous

flow and collection of new successful ideas in order to achieve and maintain

the reputation of a highly dynamic and innovative actor on the market.

Within the entire innovation process, composed of the so-called Fuzzy Front-

End (FFE), the NPD and the commercialisation [KOE2002], idea generation

and selection happens in the early and often unstructured phase of innovation.

Chapter 1

20

We want to introduce the term “ideation” for this central task of innovation

management (see Chapter 3) and emphasise the fact that the management of

ideas in this FFE is a very challenging mission for innovation management

because of the main characteristics of this crucial phase: uncertainty, ambiguity

and dependency on individual and collective performances.

1.2 Research Problem

What makes the front-end of innovation so important for innovation

management? – The answer can be seen in the fact that decisions made in the

front-end largely determine not only the outcome of the innovation process—

the innovations—but also the involved costs, time frame and the resources

needed for conducting the process [BRÖ2004] and [MIC2006a]. Hence, the

quality of ideas generated and the effectiveness of the evaluation methods to

choose the “right” ideas in the front-end largely influence the subsequent stages

of NPD and commercialisation.

Nowadays, numerous companies assume that they do not tap their full

innovation potential. These organisations are sure that their current innovation

power is not enough to guarantee long-term market success because they fail to

master the initial phase of their innovation activities in an optimal manner. So

they stress the need that innovation management has to act more systemically

and systematically to close gaps between the actual innovation creation and the

previously described possibilities of improvement. Thus, innovation

management has to find a way to organise the FFE, the pre-phase of the NPD,

that more successful ideas are generated, selected and finally transferred to the

NPD.

With the identification of its overall importance for the innovation process, the

front-end of innovation has become a focus area of innovation management in

terms of capitalising on the opportunities of structuring and improving this

extremely complex phase. Such improvement opportunities are mainly situated

in the following research fields of current innovation literature: the impulses for

ideas [BRE2009], the internal and external sources of ideas [CAL2004], the

organisational culture and strategy to leverage ideas [POS2009], or the

evaluation of ideas [POS2011].

Research in innovation management, FFE or NPD mainly deals with aspects of

the selection and implementation of ideas. However, the topic of an ideation

process for the generation, maturation, and selection of ideas that companies

can practically implement is still largely untreated. Especially Khurana and

Rosenthal emphasise the need for further research in this field [KHU1998].

Forced by innovation pressure, companies need to know how they can optimise

Introduction

21

their ideation to positively influence the following phases of the whole

innovation process. This work attempts to give a significant contribution to fill

this gap.

1.3 Motivation

The motivation driving this work is the author’s practical experience in his

function as innovation manager of the German automotive supplier KSPG

Automotive Group, formerly named Kolbenschmidt Pierburg, and denoted

"KSPG" in this thesis.

The analysis of the existing innovation management system at KSPG revealed

that

1. currently at KSPG ideation consists of the collection of ideas rather than

their generation, and

2. idea generation is limited to a core group of employees who act as idea

contributors [NEU2011b].

This situation represents a threat of idea stagnation. This is why the company’s

top management has declared the improvement of idea generation and selection

as one of its major strategic objectives. Because of KSPG’s process-oriented

corporate culture, a practicable ideation process should be the output of this

research work. The study “Car Innovation 2015” [DAN2007], which will be

explained in more detail in the upcoming Chapter 6.2.2, proves the fact that the

scenario at KSPG addresses a general problem of companies in the sector of

automotive supplier industry.

From our point of view, the principal motivation factors for the creation of an

ideation process can be summarised as follows:

Ideation should run in a structured way to make the FFE of innovation

clearer.

The systematic management of ideation supports decision-makers within

the organisation.

In the company, actors who are responsible for innovation management

have an important role in the active generation of ideas.

The accompanying development of an innovative organisational culture

motivates employees and supports the generation of ideas.

Chapter 1

22

The definition of an evaluation scheme that allows monitoring ideas and

rating their commercial success levers the transfer rate of promising ideas

from the ideation process to the following NPD process.

1.4 Scope

This thesis focuses on idea generation and selection for innovations of

products, services or business models with commercialisation potential on the

market, which is denoted as “ideation” henceforth. This focus, which will be

clearly explained in Chapter 3.1, allows a well-founded differentiation with

respect to closely related fields that are not examined in this research work, like

corporate suggestion systems and its further development as continuous

improvement process (Kaizen).

Based on the author’s background and professional situation and experience,

this work focuses on the Western automotive supplier sector with its process-

oriented corporate culture and professional environment [DEH2007]. Thus, the

main interest lies on the creation of a process-related model of ideation

management. The methodological approach is coined by a complementary

mixture of scientific literature study and practical qualitative research, mainly

in the form of expert interviews and capitalisation of feedback from practical

implementation at KSPG as case study.

1.5 Thesis Structure

The main structure of the thesis is shown in Figure 1-1. It is composed of the

following four main parts:

Part I introduces the state of the art in literature in terms of the most relevant

innovation topics for this thesis, namely innovation management and ideation.

The focus will be put on key aspects of the early phases of innovation, i.e. the

FFE, and the ideation in particular.

Part II specifies the objectives as well as the methodology of this research. As

the main research result it proposes a generic approach intended to be used as a

guideline and called “ideation reference process model” in this context. It is

based on previously during this research identified key success factors from

theory and practice. The three main phases of this model will be explained in

detail, as well as the related ideation and management activities and tools.

Part III derives a specific ideation process suitable for KSPG from the

reference process model developed in Part II, and the envisaged actions of its

Introduction

23

introduction in the corporate organisation will be proposed. Throughout this

process, the relevance and feasibility of the elaborated ideation reference

process model will be validated, and the latter improved accordingly.

Part IV draws the conclusion of this thesis and gives several perspectives for

future research activities.

Part II:

Creation

of an

Ideation Process

Part IV: Global Conclusion

Part I: State of the Art

IdeationInnovation Management

Part III:

Implementation

of the

Ideation Process

at KSPG

Introduction

Ideation Reference Process Model

Company-specific Ideation Process

Figure 1-1: Structure of this Thesis

25

Part I:

State of the Art

27

2 Innovation Management

2.1 The Definition of Innovation

The European Commission sees innovation as the core of entrepreneurial

initiative: Almost any company owes its foundation, at least in relation to its

competitors on the market, to an innovation [EUR1995]. Innovations are the

global motor for economic growth and represent at the same time the key factor

for more competitiveness [VIV2008].

However, technical progress alone is not sufficient in order to innovate with

long-time success. Innovation also means predicting market needs, offering

better quality and/or additional services, organising efficiently, meeting

deadlines and controlling costs [EUR1995]. So the term innovation becomes

more and more a widely spread phenomenon and instrument. It represents an

answer to continuous technical, economic, ecologic, social and political

changes [BRU1999], [COO1994], [MEF1998], [THO1980], [LLE2011].

Joseph Alois Schumpeter is considered to be one of the founders of modern

innovation research. Already in the year 1911 he wrote his book “Theorie der

wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung” [SCH2002]. In 1934 this major work was

published in the United States as “The Theory of Economic Development: An

Inquiry into Profits, Capital, Credit, Interest, and the Business Cycle”, where he

writes about the realisation of new combinations by “the doing of new things or

the doing of things that are already done, in a new way” [SCH1982]. Thus he

made innovation—without using the term innovation explicitly—to a subject of

economic research. Based on this fact, innovation research can look back on a

long history of scientific interest. At the same time, innovation still describes

one of the most important management tasks [SCH2005].

Since innovation has found its way into the economic context, numerous

authors created further—partially deviating—definitions and interpretations of

the term innovation. This lack of a generally accepted and consistent definition

of the term innovation is mainly due to the different dimensions which

innovations can affect [SCH2005]. Most approaches have the criteria “new”

Chapter 2

28

and “change” in common that are reflected in the definition of Everett M.

Rogers: “Innovation is an idea, practice, or object that is perceived as new by

an individual or other unit of adoption” [ROG2003]. This definition from

Rogers implies that an innovation is more than an idea [RIE2009a]. In his eyes,

an “innovation is concerned with the process of commercialising or extracting

value from ideas”. This definition agrees with the general opinion in NPD

research [KOE2001], [KOE2002]. In Chapter 3 we will explain this point more

precisely.

Nevertheless, almost every innovation starts with an idea [BUL2008], and there

are two major impulses for innovation: market pull and technology push

[BRE2009]. Koen et al. see in an idea “the most embryonic form of a new

product or service. It often consists a high-level view of the solution envisioned

for the problem identified” [KOE2002]. This can finally be manifested as “an

explicit description of an invention or problem solution with the intention of

implementation” [RIE2009a]. In the further course of our work we will refer to

this central concept of an idea.

In this context, the distinction between invention and innovation is important:

while invention describes the first technical realisation of a new problem

solution developed as a result of research activities and leads to a legal basis for

utilisation of the results (for example in the form of patents), the term

innovation implies also the utilisation, integration and marketing of new

solutions in usable products and services, going beyond the actual invention.

R&D is the basis for the development of innovations. It covers a set of specific

processes that are created to gain knowledge and to discover new technical

solutions to a problem [PLE1996], [SPE1996], [STO2001].

Intellectual property plays a major role in a technology-driven business

environment like the automotive industry because it fulfils three main functions

[SIM2001]:

Protection of price and market share by excluding others from a specific

marketplace;

insurance against legal action by other patent holders to mitigate risk of

infringement and

financial asset in strategic alliances, in which technology is licensed,

swapped, assigned, mortgaged, or held as a blocking strategy.

The following Figure 2-1 shows a generalised picture of the relationship

between patenting, invention and innovation on the basis of Blasberg’s research

work [BAS1987].

Innovation Management

29

Inventions

in use

InnovationsPatents

Patented inventions

not in use

Inventions

not in use

Inventions

Patented inventions

in use

Figure 2-1: Distinction between Patent, Invention and Innovation [BAS1987]

This explanation makes the position clear that innovation is not to be confused

with the term invention [PLE1996], [NAG1993], [SPE1996] and [STO2001].

Koen et al. have proven the fact that a common language and vocabulary in the

field of NPD research, especially in the front-end of the NPD process, is a vital

prerequisite to define the front-end of the innovation process and to bring

clarity and rationality in the management of this front-end [KOE2001]. To this

aim, we want to define the important term “opportunity”, according to Koen et

al. as “a business or technology gap, that a company or individual realises, that

exists between the current situation and an envisioned future in order to capture

competitive advantage, respond to a threat, solve a problem or ameliorate a

difficulty” [KOE2002].

2.2 The Dimensions of Innovation

Although innovation is a very complex topic there is a consistent

comprehension about the dimensions describing innovation. Hauschildt and

Salomo define four dimensions for describing the types of innovation

[HAU2011]:

1. Content dimension: What is new and what is the extent of the novelty?

2. Subjectivity dimension: For whom is it new?

3. Process dimension: Where does the novelty start and where does it end?

4. Normative dimension: Does new means successful?

Chapter 2

30

2.2.1 Content Dimension

Following Hauschildt and Salomo, the objects of development and innovation

activities are primarily products and processes [HAU2011]. Product innovation

refers to the new or improved product, equipment or service that is successful

on the market [EUR1995]. The main aim of a product innovation is to

implement its function in a more effective way than before. A new combination

of factors to make the manufacturing of a product more competitive, increase

the quality and safety levels, reduce time to market etc. is characteristic for

process innovations, the increase of efficiency being the main intension

[HAU2011]. Due to the ambiguous meaning of innovation, which can denote

both a process and its results, it is difficult to distinguish between product and

process innovations very strictly. Products and processes are mutually

dependent and partly complement each other [HAU2011].

The second aspect of this dimension of innovation is the degree of novelty, i.e.

the extent of innovation. Based on this typology, which is mainly used in the

technological context, there is a differentiation between radical and incremental

innovation [PLE1996], [SNE1994]. A radical innovation means a breakthrough

typically originating from R&D, while incremental innovation modifies the

products, processes or services through successive improvements [EUR1995].

Chandy and Tellis expand this typology of innovations: Their review of the

literature leads them to the assumption that there are two dimensions

underlying most of the definitions of innovation [CHA1998]:

1. Technology: Extent to which the technology involved in a new product is

different from prior technologies, and

2. Markets: Extent to which the new product fulfils key customer needs better

than existing products (on a per-dollar basis).

This finding allows them to distinguish four types of innovation [CHA1998]:

a) Incremental Innovation: Low technology changes and low customer

benefits per dollar,

b) Technological Breakthrough: A substantially different technology but low

customer benefits per dollar,

c) Market Breakthrough: Based on core technology similar to existing

products but high customer benefits per dollar, and

d) Radical Innovation: High technology change and high customer benefits

per dollar, relative to existing products.


31

These different types of innovations have a crucial dynamic that can be

visualised as a series of S-curves of technological innovation as shown in

Figure 2-2.

Radical

Innovation

Benefits

Per

Dollar

Time

New

Technology

(T2)

Existing

Technology (T1)

Market Breakthrough

Incremental Innovation

Actual Path

Theoretical Path

Technological

Breakthrough

d)

b)

c)

a)

Figure 2-2: Types of Innovation according to Chandy and Tellis [CHA1998]

Product innovations reflect a change in the end-product or service of a firm

[CAR2003]. They can be incremental or radical in nature that depends on their

degree of newness [HAU2011]. While incremental product innovations

improve the existing functional capabilities by means of small-scale

improvements in value-adding attributes like performance, safety, quality and

cost, radical product innovations contain concepts that differ significantly from

further products [CAR2003].

2.2.2 Subjectivity Dimension

A major problem with the identification of the degree of novelty of an

innovation is the aspect: for whom is a product new? This question plays an

important role: Not the implementation of technological changes is of crucial

importance, but the awareness of a subject to recognize these changes as

innovation [HAU2011] and [THO1980].

The subjective awareness and evaluation of innovations occurs basically in two

different ways [WIT1973]:

The market perspective: Is a product already represented in a relevant

Market in similar form or not?

Chapter 2

32

The entrepreneurial perspective: Companies can talk about innovations

when they use the novelty the first time independent of whether other

companies have already used it before.

2.2.3 Process Dimension

Innovation also means the process of the development of new products and

procedures and represents the result of all thereby connected innovations,

which have been developed until then [GER1976]. Furthermore, an innovation

does not occur to a determined moment, but is the result of a more or less

extensive sequence of content wise connected activities [VAH1999]. These

process steps can run partly in parallel and can be repeated if necessary

[HAU2011], [PLE1996] and [THO1980]. Depending on its design and

definition, this developing process includes activities from the idea

identification up to the market launch and the usage of the new product. In this

context, methods of process management are essential to ensure a structured

approach in planning, implementation and management during the product

development [STA2010].

In literature as well as often in practice, the innovation process is considered as

a multi-phase linear and/or iterative process. No consensus exists about the

number and the definition of the individual phases [HAU2011], [THO1980],

[KLE1996] and [BRE2007].

A simple pattern was developed by Thom [THO1980]. He divides the product

development process in the phases of idea generation, idea acceptance and idea

realisation. These main stages are further divided into individual sub-phases

and/or subtasks. The advantages of this generic model are its adaptability to all

types of innovation and the explicit inclusion of a decision phase in the

innovation process [STO2001]. Table 2-1 summarises Thom’s approach.

Stages of the innovation process

Main stages

1. Idea Generation 2. Idea Acceptance 3. Idea Realisation

Specification of the Main Stages

1.1 Determination of

search field

2.1 Testing ideas 3.1 Actual realisation of the

new idea

1.2 Finding ideas 2.2 Creation of

realisation plans

3.2 Sale of the new idea

to the addressee

1.3 Idea suggestion 2.3 Decision to realise a plan 3.3 Acceptance control

Table 2-1: Innovation Process Model by Thom [THO1980] and [BRE2007]


33

A very recent and comprehensive framework—and one of the most cited papers

in the context of modern innovation management [RIE2011]—was developed

by Hansen and Birkinshaw [HAN2007], which carries previously released

innovation approaches beyond idea realisation to its capitalisation (“idea

diffusion”), and is thus investigating the entire so-called Innovation Value

Chain.

As depicted in Figure 2-3, Hansen and Birkinshaw recommend viewing

innovation as a value chain comprising three phases:

Idea generation,

Idea conversion and

Idea diffusion.

IDEA GENERATION

In-HouseCross-

PollinationExternal

CONVERSION

Selection Development

DIFFUSION

Internal

Spread

External

Spread

Figure 2-3: The Innovation Value Chain [HAN2007]

Idea generation comprises generating ideas in-house, getting different divisions

and units to collaborate to combine knowledge and insight by cross-pollination,

and external sourcing to get ideas from outside the organisation.

Idea conversion is composed of selection and development. Selection covers

screening and analysing ideas, as well as initiating the funding of ideas.

Development is transforming an idea or concept into the required final form.

Finally, idea diffusion involves spreading the idea around the organisation so

that the crucial shareholders involved in the market launch and operational

activities commit to the idea.

To measure these linked tasks, the authors define key indicators. Because “a

company’s capacity to innovate is only as good as the weakest link in its

innovation value chain” [HAN2007], it is necessary to focus on the right links

and avoid weaknesses. Any weak link can break the company’s innovation

efforts, so the focus has to be set on pinpointing and strengthening the

company’s deficiencies.

Typical scenarios related to this chain-based perception helps to formulate

practically-oriented improvement recommendations, for example:

Chapter 2

34

To remedy deficiencies lying in idea generation, building external and/or

cross-unit networks is recommended.

Weaknesses in idea conversion can be overcome by creating cross-unit

funding and creating safe havens.

Idea diffusion is leveraged by designated “Idea Evangelists”, who have the

capability and the mission to convince customers and/or development and

distribution partners of the idea.

Hansen and Birkinshaw emphasise that there are “no universal solutions for

organisations wanting to improve their ability to generate, develop, and

disseminate new ideas” [HAN2007]. They argue that boosting a company’s

innovation strategy by sticking to best practices is not the right way to go.

Every company has unique innovation challenges. So another firm’s best

innovation practice could become another’s worst nightmare. They underline

the fact that “managers need to take an end-to-end view of their innovation

efforts, to pinpoint their particular weakness, and tailor their best practices

appropriate to their deficiencies” [HAN2007].

The innovation value chain is a model describing the vital goals in each phase

and can be used to analyse how a company’s development processes perform in

reaching these targets. According to this diagnostic tool of innovation,

companies can tune their innovation value chain to the most effective

processes. Hansen and Birkinshaw recommend that companies should

benchmark and record statistics on each part of their innovation value chain, so

they can monitor performance and make specific improvements.

2.2.4 Normative Dimension

Innovation is generally no end in itself but always connected with economic

and technical goals and ways of attaining them [STO2001]. The normative

dimension describes the evaluation of the economic success of an innovation.

Companies develop innovation activities assuming that the results of their R&D

positively affect the entrepreneurial success [HAU2011] and [GIE1995]. For

this reason, novelty is often associated directly with success [HAU2011] and

[GIE1995].

Often the success of an innovation cannot be assessed clearly because it

depends on the aims and expectations of the individual user or evaluator. For

instance, an innovation will only be valuable to a company, if measurable

benefits can be achieved either in terms of revenues, profits or cost reductions

[HAU2011]. Despite this restriction a general agreement exists in literature that


35

innovations have a high strategic importance and a feasibility to influence

business success positively [COO2011], [KLE1996].

2.3 The Challenges of Innovation Management

The development of new products is an extremely complex procedure that

many companies, despite extensive theoretical findings, control only in a

limited way [STO2001]. Product innovations are mainly successful if they are

systematically prepared, realised and implemented and they do not happen as a

result of pure chance [GRI1997], [PLE1996]. For that purpose it is necessary to

create appropriate basic conditions for the innovation activities and to plan,

manage and control individual innovation projects in coordination with other

innovation activities [STO2001]. These tasks are summarised under the term

innovation management.

In the literature there exist many diverging definitions and classifications of the

term innovation management. This variety reflects on the one hand the high-

contrast nature of innovation management, which is used in the diverse areas of

life. On the other hand this diversity can be explained by the different points of

view from the scientists and professionals who are concerned with the topic of

innovation management, and the factual intellectual and/or value-based cultural

attitudes they represent [VON1992]. A uniform terminology or an obligatory

definition of innovation development has not been accomplished so far.

Many definitions have in common their ascription to the term “management”

which deals in a very comprehensive manner with the planning, organisation,

leading and control of economically relevant activities [STO2001], [BRO1998],

[VAH1999]. Staehle [STA1999] as well as Hauschildt and Salomo [HAU2011]

distinguish management in

a functional point of view which describes the processes and functions

necessary in work-sharing organisations especially the definition of goals

and strategies, decision making, the creation and inducement of information

flow and the establishment of social relations and

an institutional perspective which carries out the description and analysis of

the functions and roles of the persons and person groups who are involved

in management tasks.

Accordingly, innovation management can be defined as the institutional

planning and control process of all transactions by persons carrying managerial

responsibilities which cover the development and implementation of company’s

subjective new products and processes [MEF1998] and [DIL1994]. Therefore

the overall mission of innovation management is to manage all innovation

Chapter 2

36

activities to ensure long-term sustainable competitive advantages [PLE1996].

This task description can be divided in the following fundamental functions

[HAU2011] and [PLE1996]:

Creation of a suitable conceptual framework and an innovation stimulating

system (e.g. organisational structure and culture) with appropriate social

relations.

Establishment of a process-accompanying and inter-divisional information

exchange between all the participants involved in an innovation project.

Definition of innovation goals and selection of adequate innovation

strategies.

Planning and controlling of individual innovation processes as well as the

entire innovation portfolios and the coordination of particular innovation

projects.

Continuing evaluation and decision of innovation projects under economic

and technical criteria.

According to one of the most extensive recent European studies named

“IMP3rove”, it must be taken into account that in a given company these tasks

are embedded in a broader influencing context [DIE2006], [ENG2010]. The

authors propose a coherent and universal model, which was used as a standard

to analyse and assess the innovation processes in more than 1,500 small and

medium sized enterprises (SME) from all over Europe.

This model covers all dimensions of innovation management, which are geared

to sustainable and profitable growth, and included in A.T. Kearney’s “House of

Innovation”, which is shown in Figure 2-4. The essential building blocks of this

house are: 1. innovation strategy, 2. innovation organisation and culture, 3.

innovation life-cycle management, and 4. innovation enablers. According to

this holistic approach, companies have to continually and systematically

manage all of these four dimensions to ensure a steady flow of innovations.


37

Enabler, e.g. Human Resource Management,

Knowledge Management, Project and Program

Management, Controlling and IT

Inno-

vation

Strategy

Product/

Process

Development

Idea

Management

Launch/

Continuous

Improvement

Innovation

Organisation

and Culture

Innovation Life-Cycle

Management

Figure 2-4: A.T. Kearney's House of Innovation [DIE2006], [ENG2010]

Although there were only SMEs involved in this particular study, the elements

of the proposed innovation management framework are sufficiently general to

be applied equally well to large enterprises. Only their particular challenges are

somewhat different [RIE2011].

The Innovation Strategy is aligned with business strategy and identifies the

most promising areas where the company can achieve higher profit growth rates

either with a) new products or services or b) with existing products or service in

new markets or c) with new or improved processes or business models.

The company’s Organisation and Culture have to support this innovation

strategy so that the profit growth targets can be reached. Companies must have

the structures to drive innovation by e.g. the integration of external partners in

their development processes. Their culture must be open to new ideas no matter

where they come from. The organisation has to translate the innovation strategy

to pursue those ideas that are most promising for their focus areas.

Innovation Life-Cycle Management uses a process that continually develops the

capabilities for idea generation, product development, market launch and timely

discontinuation of products and services that are no longer profitable. Here

leading innovators avoid inefficiencies and ensure short time-to-profit, while

the average company might only focus on the time-to-market and forget about

proper life-cycle management after the launch of the innovation.

Chapter 2

38

Enabling Factors such as knowledge management, IT- and Human Resource

systems, project management, and capabilities in specific technologies or

expertise in new market development also have a significant impact on growth

through innovation management. They must be associated with the company’s

innovation strategy, allocated in the right manner in the organisation and

leveraged for successful innovation management to fully exploit the growth

potential of the innovation.

Because innovation management covers all aspects fostering the innovation

capabilities of a company, all of these components must be managed to secure

the company’s long-term growth. Therefore, these dimensions play a vital role

as a guideline for our own research work.

All in all the innovation management is no classical company function. During

the last decades, models of innovation have moved from simple linear models

towards increasingly complex interactive models [ROT1992]. Due to this

change, innovation management has more and more the mission to consider

technological, market organisational and institutional dimensions [TID2001],

which implies the involvement of not only all responsible members of the

company but also external interest groups. These comprehensive and profound

interactions with other corporate divisions and the business environment turn

the innovation management into a company-wide function with influence on the

leadership of the whole corporation [DIL1994] and [PLE1996]. Based on these

developments, approaches like Stakeholder Integration [FRE1984] and

[FRE2004] and Open Innovation [CHE2003] become more and more important

for innovation management.

2.4 Stakeholder Approach

2.4.1 Defining the Stakeholders

Freeman’s landmark publications [FRE1984] and [FRE2004] paved the way for

the model of market stakeholders into the management literature. Following

Freeman’s view, stakeholders are defined as “any group or individual who can

affect or is affected by the achievement of the organisation’s objectives”

[FRE1984].

Recently, the stakeholder approach also appears increasingly often in the R&D

and innovation management context [ELI2002], [SMI2009]. The basic idea is

that not only one group of stakeholders should be responsible for innovations,

but also other stakeholders of the corporate environment should be actively

involved in the innovation process.


39

As was shown in research on integrated product and system design [RIE2009b],

[RIE2010a], and [RIE2010b], integrating stakeholders of the complete

product/system life cycle throughout the entire product/system development

process from the earliest phases on is a key to creating sustainable innovation.

The sustainability aspect is leveraged by the fact that only the integration of

different views on the product/system in terms of its functions and its

economic, ecologic, and social environment allows to identify requirements and

constraints on the product/system in a holistic manner, and therefore to take

them into account both in the composition of development teams, as well as in

the design and architecture of the product/system [ZWO2007]. The same issue

applies to idea generation and assessment, which is part of the earliest upfront

phases in the product/system life cycle.

Consequently, for innovation management it is essential to identify potential

innovative stakeholders inside and outside the organisation. However, as there

is no unique grouping of related stakeholders, concepts from social science help

clustering stakeholders. In integrated design, Mer et al. [MER1997] proposes

groups (“worlds”) of stakeholders which share

1. Logic of Action: stakeholders expose and contribute what is essential for

them.

2. Scale of Value: means to measure and understanding of the value

contribution.

3. Collective Knowledge: knowledge that is shared among different worlds.

The essential consideration here is that the integration of these stakeholder

worlds in the innovation management process is a key step for making

innovation sustainable, as it allows taking into account the requirements and

constraints imposed by the different actors of the product/system life cycle

[SAU2010]. A large number of diverse internal and external stakeholders of a

company should take active parts in the whole innovation management process

[CLE2007]. Thus innovation becomes a team-based effort that involves

alliances with all internal and external partners [COO2006b].

The added value created by the integration of stakeholders has often been

ignored in the decision-making process when seeking to improve innovation

performance. Hansen and Birkinshaw found that in diffusion-poor companies,

decisions about market launch are made mostly locally, and “not-invented-here

thinking” [KAT1982] dominates the decision process [HAN2007]. Many

decision-makers do not completely understand the potential benefit of the value

added by stakeholders. Stakeholders not only affect the survival and

development of enterprises, but also determine the activities and effectiveness

of enterprise’s technology innovation. Research results indicate that internal

and external stakeholders actually affect development and effectiveness of

Chapter 2

40

enterprise technology innovation [SCH2006]. At different stages of the

innovation process, the mode and degree of effects from stakeholder

involvement are different. Stakeholders have different benefit requests and

different realisation approaches to the whole innovation management process.

These differences require a detailed analysis of the stakeholders.

2.4.2 Managing the Stakeholders

The management of the stakeholders begins with understanding them.

Therefore, the analysis of the stakeholders is essential. Only through the

analysis and the thereby gained insights it is possible to organise the

stakeholders and coordinate the innovation activities they are concerned with.

Furthermore, this kind of analysis is compulsory for innovation projects to gain

more validation and significance [ELI2002], [STE2009]. The core questions

which such a stakeholder analysis should answer are the following:

Who are the stakeholders involved in innovation management?

What are the interests and value systems of the stakeholders?

What are the stakeholders’ roles and how can their influence been rated?

What kind of transactions and interdependencies exist with and between

the stakeholders? Are there any conflicts or critical success factors?

Which methods and tools have to be found that facilitate the systematic

involvement of these stakeholders to obtain sustainable improvement in

innovation development?

With these questions a company has the opportunity to survey its stakeholders.

For internal and external stakeholders this guideline can be used to gain

insights about their contribution to innovations.

In particular, employees are highly cited as sources of ideas [STA1992],

[BEL2004], [ALA2003]. This confirms the presumption that internal

stakeholders have a major impact on the early stage of the innovation process.

The important role of the employees throughout the whole innovation process

cannot be underestimated, either. The innovative development and the

commercial success of the company both depend on the employees’

commitments and motivation levels. Parnell and Menefee show that employees

may have different perspectives based on their positions that may influence

their decision-making [PAR2007]. This leads to the assumption that employees

in certain positions may be more likely to come up with new product ideas,

while other employees may support the idea selection and idea realisation,

depending on their perspectives and duties within the company.


41

However, the innovation process should not only be based on well-known

internal stakeholders. It is a major mistake to think that ideas can only come

from inside the company. This error is known as the “Not-Invented-Here (NIH)

Syndrome”, where companies reject ideas generated outside its walls because

they think those ideas are inferior to their own [KAT1982]. The systematic

involvement of external stakeholders of the product life cycle in innovation

management has huge potential, but demands at the same time a very good

understanding of the stakeholders. The multitude and variety of external

stakeholder groups potentially involved in this movement is extremely large,

and very much driven and supported by increasingly powerful and pervasive

networking facilities.

The management and coordination of such networks require specific

competencies. Moreover, new metrics have to be found which allow the

performance assessment of such innovation networks in terms of several

criteria. This is a very important subject of research in management and

economy. An exhaustive overview of the state of the art is given in

[RAM2010].

There are, however, some intuitive indicators that help in choosing the right

strategy and tools to integrate specific groups of stakeholders in the innovation

management process. It is evident, for example, that the integration of certain

internal stakeholder groups almost requires the positioning of the innovation

management towards certain external stakeholders in order to work effectively,

e.g.:

Executives need government and society to build their innovation

strategies.

Management can capitalise on direct contacts with customers, competitors,

and suppliers to contribute to innovation management.

Employees from the sales department can contribute the Voice of the

Customer (VoC) to innovation management, identify lead customers,

undertake special initiatives to find out about customer satisfaction, wishes,

preferences for competitors etc.

For each of these relationships there has to be a dedicated consideration about

the process, i.e., the people, methods and tools, which not only enable them, but

also motivate the affected stakeholders to contribute with a positive,

constructive and fair attitude.

Involving external stakeholders in company-wide innovation management is

also the core characteristic of Open Innovation strategies, which have originally

been coined by Chesbrough in 2003 [CHE2003]. Both external and internal

ideas are used to create value, and internal mechanisms are defined to claim

Chapter 2

42

some portion of that value. Open Innovation assumes that internal ideas can

also be taken to market through external channels, outside the current

businesses of the firm, to generate additional value. Ideas can also start outside

the firm’s own labs and can move inside. Open Innovation allows the recovery

of overlooked innovations, which increases the chance for projects to create

value in a new market or to be combined with other projects. It is thus essential

to build up a fundamental understanding in the company for the utilisation of

these external stakeholder and the accompanying advantages of this new

concept of innovation management, which avoids internal restrictions.

2.5 Open Innovation

In classical industrial organisations, innovation processes have been dominated

by the so-called innovation funnel model [COR2005], [HER2007a]. This model

is essentially based on the fact that innovation is driven and controlled

exclusively by stakeholders that are internal to the organisation. This paradigm

can be called Closed Innovation, and it says successful innovations require

control. Companies must generate their own ideas and then develop, build,

market, distribute, service, finance and support them on their own. It counsels

firms to be strongly self-reliant, as it is impossible to be sure of the quality,

availability and capability of others’ ideas. Consequently, this view also

suggests that companies should hire the best and the brightest people, so that

the smartest people in their respective industry work for them. Furthermore,

intellectual property has to be strictly controlled in order to avoid that

competitors can profit from the company’s ideas [RIE2011].

In recent years, however, several factors have continued to erode the

underpinnings of Closed Innovation. One of them was the growing mobility of

highly experienced and skilled people. When people left an organisation, after

working there for many years, they took valuable knowledge with them to their

new employer. Not only did the new employer win a competent employee at the

detriment of its competitor, but also he has never had to pay any compensation

to the previous organisation for training that employee. The logic of Closed

Innovation was further challenged by the increasingly fast time to market for

many products and services, making the shelf life of a particular technology

ever shorter. Further, as well, the burgeoning amount of college and post-

college training led knowledge to spill out beyond the corporate central

research labs to companies of all sizes in many industries [RIE2011].

Beyond that, when fundamental technology breakthroughs occurred, the

scientists and engineers who made them were aware of an outside option that

they had formerly lacked. If the company that funded these discoveries did not


43

pursue them in a timely fashion, the scientists and engineers could pursue the

breakthroughs on their own in a new start-up firm. Successful companies would

not reinvest in new fundamental discoveries but would look outside for another

external technology to commercialise [RIE2011]

Open Innovation is the opposed paradigm that assumes firms can and should

use external ideas as well as internal ideas, and internal and external paths to

market, as the firms look to advance their technology. Both external and

internal ideas are used to create value, and internal mechanisms are defined to

claim some portion of that value. Open Innovation assumes that internal ideas

can also be taken to market through external channels, outside the current

businesses of the firm, to generate additional value. Ideas can also start outside

the firm’s own labs and can move inside. Open Innovation allows the recovery

of overlooked innovations, which increases the chance for projects will find

value in a new market or be combined with other projects [CHE2003] and

[RIE2011].

Open Innovation has been coined by Chesbrough in 2003 [CHE2003], although

the paradigm has been around in some industries for a long time. A stereotype

example is the Hollywood film industry, which has innovated for years through

a network of partnerships and alliances among production studios, directors,

talent agencies, actors and scriptwriters [CHE2003]. Many industries are in

transition between the two paradigms, e.g., automobiles, biotechnology,

pharmaceuticals, healthcare, computers, software, communications, banking,

insurance, and consumer packaged goods. The focus of innovation in these

industries is moving beyond the confines of the central R&D laboratories of the

largest companies to start-ups, universities and other outsiders. In so doing, the

company can renew its current business and generate new business, capitalising

on abundant distributed knowledge resources [CHE2003].

Chesbrough uses contrasting principles for the distinction between closed and

open innovation, based on the following six elements [ILI2010b]:

1. location of expertise,

2. task of own R&D,

3. attitude towards research,

4. endeavour to be first on the market,

5. location of idea generation, and

6. handling of intellectual property.

Table 2-2 opposes the divergent principles of the Closed Innovation approach

with the new paradigm of Open Innovation [CHE2003].

Chapter 2

44

Table 2-2: Contrasting Principles of Closed and Open Innovation

[CHE2003]

The Open Innovation paradigm is the basis of more specific derivatives like

Coopetition [BEN2000] and Crowdsourcing [HOW2011], and has also become

a key concept for tackling the challenges of economic crisis [CHE2009].

2.6 Implications from this Chapter

Innovations are at the centre of technical, economic, ecologic, social and

political progress. Therefore, different research disciplines have been focussing

on this subject for decades. NPD research emphasises the commercialisation

aspect of innovations that allows distinguishing them clearly from inventions.

The origin of every innovation, however, is an idea. Consequently, research

activities should focus on this topic to influence resulting innovations positively

and assure their marketability.

Closed Innovation Principles Open Innovation Principles

The smart people in our field work for us.

Not all the smart people work for us. We need

to work with smart people inside and outside

our company.

To profit from R&D, we must discover it,

develop it, and ship it ourselves.

Eternal R&D can create significant value;

internal R&D is needed to claim some portion

of that value.

If we discover it ourselves, we will get it to

market first.

We don’t have to originate the research to

profit from it.

The company that gets an innovation to market

first will win.

Building a better business model is better than

getting to market first.

If we create the most and the best ideas in the

industry, we will win.

If we make the best use of internal and

external ideas, we will win.

We should control our intellectual property, so

that our competitors don’t profit from our

ideas.

We should profit from others’ use of our

intellectual property, and we should by others’

intellectual property whenever it advances our

own business model.


45

Innovation management organises all the innovation-related tasks and compiles

the fundamentals in which innovations can flourish such as the basic enabling

factors, innovation life-cycle management, innovation organisation and culture,

as well as innovation strategy. A major challenge of innovation management is

assuring a continuous flow of ideas to make innovation sustainable. Here the

integration of a company’s internal and external stakeholders and the

organisational and cultural change towards Open Innovation offer today’s

innovation management potentials to improve their status quo, which should be

investigated more deeply.

The complexity of innovation and innovation management is mainly due to its

multidimensionality, wherein the process dimension of innovations plays a

major role relating to its high impact on a multitude of business actions. During

this innovation process, the generation and selection of ideas represents the

beginning of all following sub-phases. This process aspect—especially in

regard to structuring and managing ideas—represents an area that has not yet

been researched exhaustively. This is why we decided to dig deeper into the

subject of ideation, as pointed out in the subsequent chapter.

47

3 Ideation

3.1 Defining Ideation

Ideation represents “the process of generating creative ideas” [MAH2011].

Although it is a portmanteau word that combines the words “idea” and

“generation” it has already found its way into the Oxford Dictionary, where it

stands for “the formation of ideas or concepts” [OXF2012].

Based on these existing general definitions of the term “ideation”, we want to

add to this terminology a more precise definition. Within the scope of this

research work,

ideation denotes the procedure of idea generation and selection for

innovations of products, services or business models with

commercialisation potential on the market.

The aspect of commercial implementation and success on the market is

essential for our research work because this is the major characteristic of

innovations [KOE2001], [KOE2002]. That excludes ideation for pure internal

process innovations or cost efficient organisational new changes within

companies. Although radical innovations can imply new processes, process

innovations frequently follow the evolutionary product innovation.

Why does such a definition make sense? – There are three major reasons that

drive this interpretation of the term “ideation”:

1. This definition allows the delimitation from the existing term “idea

management”, which is nowadays mainly reserved to the subjects of

corporate suggestion system and/or the continuous improvement process

(Kaizen).

2. Through the term “ideation” and its previous utilisation in literature, the

connection to Design Thinking [BRO2008] is more obvious.

Chapter 3

48

3. By using the term “ideation”, the focus on the early phase of innovations—

the so-called “fuzzy front-end”—is even more emphasised, and it becomes

possible to position “ideation” in the entire innovation process.

These three main aspects concerning ideation will be explained in more detail

in the following sections.

3.1.1 Beyond Improving the Company

The utilisation of the term “ideation” allows a well-founded delimitation to the

corporate suggestion system, which is nowadays often called “idea

management”. Suggestion systems are well-established and have a long history

in Europe, America and Asia [SPA1990] and [LLO1999].

The basic concept of suggestion systems is “a formal mechanism which

encourages employees to contribute constructive ideas for improving their

organisation” [DUN1997]. This fundamental idea is as old as mankind, because

social life means to be subject to inevitable change where improvements are

necessary [SPA1990].

Thus, the first recorded suggestion system in the West was implemented in

1770, where the leaders of the British Navy realised the need for a reprisal-free

process for soliciting frontline information from its sailors [ROB1998]. At that

time, the mere mention of an idea that directly contradicted a captain’s or

admiral’s opinion was likely to be punished by death.

In the German-speaking countries, Alfred Krupp is deemed to be the founder of

corporate suggestion system. In his often cited “Generalreluativ” (German for:

“General Regulation”) from 1872, Alfred Krupp asked his employees for

improvement suggestions and instructed his superior team to take them

gratefully and transfer it to the “Directorium” for examination [RID1998]. So

Alfred Krupp already outlined guidelines concerning suggestions, including the

submission and evaluation of ideas. He also described how to proceed with

declined ideas.

Another often mentioned pioneer of the suggestion system in Europe is William

Denny, a Scottish shipbuilder, who asked his workers to suggest methods for

building ships at low cost. The William Denney Shipbuilding Company goes

down in economic history as first enterprise in Europe, which availed oneself of

a suggestion scheme in 1880. It was intended to collect ideas from all

employees and to pay a fair reward for each implementable idea [SPA1990],

[ROB1998].

In 1892, National Cash Register (NCR) became the first US company to

implement a corporate-wide suggestion program. The concept of the 'hundred-

Ideation

49

headed brain' was founded by John Patterson, the company’s first president. He

realised early in his business career that employees had valuable ideas but that

management structures tended to prevent these ideas from spreading through

the company. Employees complained that there was no point giving ideas to

their supervisors as the best ideas were stolen, and the worst ideas used as a

pretext for their dismissal [ROB1998].

Many companies around the world follow these successful examples, and

especially during World War II and the post-war years, suggestion systems

became very popular in the manufacturing sector. After some time of stagnation

in the 1960s and 1970s, suggestion systems were reactivated by new

optimisation-oriented concepts, like for instance the Japanese approach of

continuous improvement processes, called Kaizen [IMA1997], [KOS2011],

[BIS2008] and [THO2009]. Over decades of years, suggestion schemes became

an integral part of human resource management, with the main aim to motivate

employees to contribute their ideas in order to achieve cost, safety and quality

improvements [ROB1998], [THO2003] and [THO2009].

Since the 1990s, a number of new approaches developed, including "cross-

functional teams" and in German-speaking countries the “Vorgesetztenmodell”

(German for: “supervisory model”), so that suggestion systems became more

and more a management task. So mainly in Germany, Austria and Switzerland

the term “idea management” is used synonymously for the concept of corporate

suggestion system, also named employee suggestion system or only suggestion

system or scheme [THO2009].

In parallel with the development of the suggestion system towards an idea

management system, companies such as Imaginatik and General Ideas Software

(now BrightIdea) entered the market in the 1990s, allowing companies to

capture and process ideas through dedicated software packages. Such tools

allowed managers to configure and run “idea campaigns”. In addition to these

industry pioneers, a number of further vendors have entered the market, such as

JPB (makers of Jenni), Idea Champions (makers of IngenuityBank), and OVO

(makers of their Spark and Incubator products) [SHO2006].

Despite these evolutionary changes of the corporate suggestion system and the

continuous improvement process, both systems still centre the improvement of

the own company. These approaches are employee-oriented, while innovations

are dedicated to technological and financial objectives [ZIM1999].

In the context of this thesis, ideation will focus on ideas which are impulses for

new activities going beyond organisational improvement. The main

characteristics of these ideas are [GLO2011]

the consistency with the goals of the organisation,

Chapter 3

50

pro-active behaviour of the initiator,

overcoming of barriers,

a long-term orientation [FRE1997],

multidimensional risk [HAU2011] , [DES2005] and

market commercialisation potential that leads to a significant value increase

for the company and its customers [ILI2009].

Based on this assumption, ideation is not the same like “idea management”

because “idea management” is still aligned with improvements of processes in

administration and manufacturing. Ideation tries to actively influence the idea

generation through individual methods, whereas “idea management”, with its

institutionalised workflow (e.g. by formal contact point, IT system), the

acceptance of the suggestion requires only a passive behaviour of the idea

contributor after the submission, because a determined decision-making

commission shall administer the evaluation and selection of the implemented

activities. In contrast to idea management, ideation introduces ideas that are

connected with pro-active convincing and also overcoming of resistances.

3.1.2 Connection to Design Thinking

Reviewing the latest publications that uses the expression „ideation“, especially

the article by Tim Brown, CEO of the design firm IDEO, from the year 2008

plays a prominent role. IDEO started as a design firm but over the last years it

developed itself towards a consulting firm for innovation [HUF2012]. Tim

Brown brings the term “Design Thinking” increasingly into business context in

his publications [BRO2009]. “Design Thinking”, Tim Brown’s article in the

Harvard Business Review, summarises a methodology which has been coined

and promoted by IDEO since several years.

Although Design Thinking has been existing in design science since the late

1960s [SIM1969], [MCK1973], and became more and more a subject of higher

education and literature [FAS1993], [FAS1994], [ROW1987], [BUC1992], it

was David M. Kelley, the founder of IDEO, who adapted Design Thinking for

business purposes [KEL2004]. Later on, especially Tim Brown has written and

spoken extensively about IDEO’s design philosophy and its potential relevance

for other companies. He described how designers bring their methods into

business, either by taking part themselves in business process, or by training

business people to use design methods [KEL2005].

Generally speaking, Design Thinking describes the study of cognitive

processes, which express themselves in design action [CRO2011]. Tim Brown

Ideation

51

broadens this understanding and explains Design Thinking as “a methodology

that imbues the full spectrum of innovation activities with a human-centred

design ethos” [BRO2008]. He likes to express that innovation is powered by a

deep understanding of the consumer needs and the role of the product to fulfil

the users’ requirements.

This is especially forced through direct observation. In his eyes, Design

Thinking “is a discipline that uses the designer’s sensibility and methods to

match people’s needs with what is technologically feasible and what a viable

business strategy can convert into customer value and market opportunity”

[BRO2008]. Thus, Design Thinking shares a common set of values that drive

innovation:

Creativity,

Ambidextrous Thinking,

Teamwork,

End-User Focus,

Curiosity.

The Design Thinking Process by IDEO is characterised by an iterative running

through the following main phases:

1. Inspiration: This part labels the circumstances that lead to the motivation of

searching for solutions.

2. Ideation: This section describes “the process of generating, developing and

testing ideas that may lead to solutions” [BRO2008].

3. Implementation: During this phase the introduction on the market stands in

the centre.

All these phases have several sub-cycles, which make designers deeper

concerned with the future product [BRO2008].

To sum up, Design Thinking can be applied not only to the aesthetic aspects of

products, but rather to all system aspects. At the core of the method are systems

thinking, life-cycle thinking and working in creative interdisciplinary teams.

3.1.3 Importance of the Early Phase of Innovation

Koen et al. see the whole innovation process divided into three parts: the fuzzy

font-end, the new product development (NPD) process, and the

commercialisation phase. The fuzzy front-end is the sum of all activities which

come before the well-structured NPD. In this context, Koen et al. point out that

Chapter 3

52

many companies utilise a formal stage-gate process [COO2011] for managing

product development for incremental innovations [KOE2002].

Regarding the entire innovation process, the first determinable stage is ideation

[BUL2008]. Taking into account the previous explanations of the term ideation

and relating it with the systematisation of the innovation process by Koen et al.

[KOE2001], allows situating ideation more accurately. Figure 3-1 visualises the

position of ideation in the innovation process.

Ideation

New Product Development (NPD) CommercialisationFuzzy Front End (FFE)

$

The entire Innovation Process

Figure 3-1: The Entire Innovation Process divided in Fuzzy Front-End, NPD

and Commercialisation [KOE2002]

According to this location of ideation in the entire innovation process, the term

“fuzzy front-end” is essential because it explains the earliest stages of new

product development, even before its first official discussions [BRE2007], and

ideation is at the very beginning of this front-end.

This early stage of the innovation process includes all the time spent on the idea

as well as the activities enforcing it; from the first impulse and/or opportunity

for a new product or a new service up to go/no go decisions concerning

implementation and the start of development of the new product and/or service

[REI2004], [HER2007b].

The effective management of the early phase of the innovation process is the

origin for innovative ideas for sustainable competitive advantage [KIM2002].

This influence of the front-end on new product development has been verified

by empirical studies [HER2007b], [VER2006], [VER2008], [STO2008]. Table

3-1 summarises the main results of these studies.

Ideation

53

Table 3-1: Studies confirming the Impact of the Front-End on NPD

[HEL2009]

This thesis seeks to highlight the fact that ideation is a crucial part of the early

phase of innovation, and that it is important for the future commercial success

to structure the fuzzy front-end of innovation processes. This fact has turned

out to be an effective measure in many of today’s innovation leading

companies. Therefore the next section will focus in greater detail on this crucial

part of innovation.

3.2 Structuring Ideation

3.2.1 Ideation as Part of the Early Phase of Innovation

Innovation management in research and practice has largely focussed on

finding the ideal innovation process [BRÖ2005], [COO2011]. In literature the

innovation process is divided in an early phase considered as the front-end of

innovation and a later phase called downstream [GLO2011]. The cutting point

between these two phases is generally the first official discussion, where the

top management decides upon the funding, staffing and the launch or kill of the

project [KHU1997], [KOE2001]. This decision is also called “money gate“

[HER2007b].

Object of investigation Results Source

144 German measurement and

control firms

Companies which reduce

systematically market and

technological uncertainties during the

fuzzy front-end of innovation belong

to the more successful innovators

[VER2006]

497 New Product Development

(NPD) projects from Japanese

mechanical and electrical

engineering firms

Key driver of project success is the

intensity of planning prior to the start

of development: relationship between

front-end factors and project success

[VER2008]

475 Research and Development

projects in Japanese electrical and

mechanical engineering companies

Planning intensity during the early

phase of innovation is linked to the

project success

[STO2008]

Conclusions from the studies: high importance of

early reduction of technical and market uncertainty

early involvement of all relevant project members

early interdisciplinary teamwork and communication

early involvement of top management and allocation of resources

Chapter 3

54

Smith and Reinertsen introduced the term “fuzzy front-end” in 1991 [SMI1991]

to explain the earliest stages of new product development [KHU1997]. This

early stage of the innovation process includes all the time spent on the idea as

well as the activities enforcing it or not; so the fuzzy front-end covers the steps

from idea generation to either its approval for development or its termination

[ZHA2001]. The fuzzy front-end is challenged to combine on the one hand

sufficient room for creativity and freedom of ideation and on the other hand

systemised activities to enhance efficiency [HER2007b].

The main characteristics of the fuzzy front-end of innovation [GLO2011] – and

these are the reasons why the expression “fuzzy” comes into play – are the

following three aspects.

1. Uncertainty: Based in its nature, a new idea is associated with a relatively

high degree of environmental uncertainty concerning e.g. customer/market

demand, technology, suppliers, competition, internal organisation, resources,

standards and regulations [GLO2011], [ZHA2001]. This uncertainty grows

with increasing novelty [TRU1996]. Uncertainty occurs in consequence of

missing and/or insufficient knowledge about the novelty of the project and the

lack of experience with the necessary activities to reach the targeted result

[TRU1996] and [THO1980]. Also, different kinds of risk accompany this

uncertainty [TRU1996].

2. Ambiguity: The diversity in interpretation of any stimulus also contributes to

this fuzziness [GLO2011]. The multitude of participants, decisions and

interdependences connected with the front-end process generate also a high

complexity of tasks, which can only be managed to a certain extent by the use

of conventional routine jobs and decision mechanisms [STO2001]. This

process of change that runs during the creation of innovations causes, however,

also material-intellectual, socio-emotional and value-cultural conflicts

[STO2001]. In this context, occurring questions are answered more by the

exchange of personal opinions as on the basis of hard data [ZHA2001].

3. Dependency on individual performances: So-called “Product Champions”

play a crucial role in the development of a raw idea into a concrete innovation

[GLO2011], [KIM2002]. This “Champion” interacts with a large number of

internal and external contact persons but in the end this single key person

drives the fuzzy front-end activities pro-actively [STE2003].

Table 3-2 summarises the differences between the fuzzy front-end and the

downstream innovation processes.

Ideation

55

Table 3-2: Comparison between Front-End and Downstream of the

Innovation Process [GLO2011], [HER2007b], [KOE2001]

Upfront Downstream

Initial Situation Stimulus

Product definition

Requirements specification

Business plan

Project schedule

Character of ideas Fuzzy, diffuse

Changeable, modifiable

Clear, distinct, explicit

Specific

Detailed

Content focus Diversified

Vague

Specified

Detailed

Understanding of

customer relations

Often not clear and not verified

Because of the degree of novelty

the customer acceptance is

possibly unknown

By the use of interactions tested

and increasingly more clearly

Market expertise

Estimation of market potential,

market size and market

development is often rough

By the use of market research

concrete market situation is

known

Forecast is more reliable

Understanding of

technology

Technical feasibility is hardly

assessable

Technical feasibility through

development

Management

commitment Low High

Degree of

formalisation

Unstructured

Experimental

Dynamic

Structured

Planned

Goal-oriented

Degree of

documentation Low

High

Detailed

Employee Single person

Small team

Multi-disciplinary development

team

Forecast (e.g. sales) Speculative

Uncertain

Increasingly analysable and

predictable

Funding No official budget (bootlegging)

or small global budget Authorised high-volume budget

Completion date Not predictable Determined date of market

launch

Result Blue print

Product concept Market-ready product

Basis of

decision-making

Qualitative data

Estimations Precise, quantitative data

Termination

decision

Easy

No or small costs

Difficult

(Partly high) sunk costs

Chapter 3

56

Despite its fuzzy nature, an increasing number of studies highlight the

importance of the front-end of research and development (R&D) projects for

the overall success of innovations [BRÖ2005], [COO2011], [KIM2002],

[STE2003]. The reason is that decisions made in the very early phase largely

determine not only the resulting innovation, but also the whole innovation

process with its related costs, time frame and the resources needed [BRÖ2004]

and [MIC2006a]. The fuzzy front-end with its sub-phases of idea generation,

evaluation and selection affects the quality of the generated ideas. The

effectiveness of the evaluation and selection methods applied during the whole

innovation process has a significant impact on the downstream process phases,

especially the development and commercialisation [MUR1997].

Because of their highly creative and dynamic character, it is practically

impossible to describe the fuzzy front-end activities in the form of one generic

front-end process. Senhar points out that the “one size fits all” paradigm

assumed in project management literature does not take effect [SHE2001].

Consequentially, differences in the structural and environmental factors of

R&D projects and the increasing importance of this diversity have to take into

account by R&D management research as well as R&D practice [SHE2001]

and [BUT2004]. The very complex and risky character of the fuzzy front-end

makes the implementation of a process which actively influences the ideation

into existing processes very complicated in practice.

From the large variety of models which are discussed in literature, the ones

presented in the following section contribute to widely recognised explanations

for structuring the fuzzy front-end. Also these models help to build up a

common understanding of the innovation process with its different

perspectives, and support us in the creation of an ideation process.

3.2.2 The Holistic Front-End Model

One of the most significant—and for this research work most inspiring—

process models for the fuzzy front-end of NPD is Khurana and Rosenthal’s

holistic front-end model [KHU1997]. Their model of the new product

development front-end is divided in three phases and ends with a top

management decision about the continuation of the project. Based on their

studies, Khurana and Rosenthal highlight the fact that the individual but

interrelated activities are often handled separately. So they suggest a process

model where the overall product and portfolio strategy is a foundation element

and the “understanding of the interrelationships between the activities is as

important as the activities themselves” [KHU1997].

Ideation

57

In the first phase, the so-called “Pre-Phase Zero”, the company starts with

activities concerning idea generation, market analysis and technology

evaluation to discover a product and/or market opportunity. This Pre-Phase

Zero corresponds to our definition of the ideation. “These Pre-Phase Zero

activities are the least explicit and most fuzzy, and a deeper understanding of

these decisions is needed through further research” [KHU1998].

If an opportunity appears to be worth a further exploration, the next phase,

named “Phase Zero”, will be initiated. In this phase the company assigns a

project group, where suppliers can be part of as well, to consider different

perspectives and to complete the picture. The mission of this group is to

develop a product concept and specification together.

The third phase, “Phase One”, includes a feasibility study to confirm the

product concept, as well as the concrete project planning.

The main tasks of these stages of the front-end process are to identify customer

needs, the target market segments, and the competitive situation. Also, the

business and the technical feasibility of the new product have to be assessed,

including the necessary resources and competencies. The validation of the

product concept, as well as the exact project planning including time schedule,

personnel and resource planning have to be done. The end of the front-end

process marks the presentation of the business case by the project team. Finally,

the go or no-go decision by the top management about the project closes the

process [KHU1997]. Figure 3-2 shows Khurana and Rosenthal’s model of the

front-end of innovation, where we highlighted our research focus of the still

less explored ideation part:

Phase Zero:

Product Concept

Phase One:

Feasibility and

Project Planning

Specification &

Design

Prototype Test &

Validate

Volume

Manufacturing

Market Launch

Front End NPD Execution

ONGOING Product & Portfolio Strategy Formulation and Feedback

Continue/

No Go

DecisionPreliminary

Opportunity

Identification:

Idea Generation,

Market &

Technology

Analysis

Product &

Portfolio Strategy

Pre-Phase Zero

(ongoing)

Ideation

Figure 3-2: Front-End Model by Khurana and Rosenthal [KHU1998]

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58

For Khurana and Rosenthal’s process description, the conceptual integration of

fundamentals from the organisational environment—the so-called foundation

elements—is extremely important. These foundation elements are key drivers

of the model, just like the portfolio and product strategy, the organisation

structure in the form of cross-functional project organisation, clear roles,

communication structures and leadership. During the pre-phase zero, they

influence e.g. the qualitative screening, which has to be aligned with existing

products and the overall product strategy. In the later phases, these foundation

elements have an impact on the quality and the efficiency of the execution, as

well on the informal selection of alternatives.

In Khurana and Rosenthal’s front-end model, four key roles play a major role:

the core team, the project leader, the executive review committee, and the

senior management [KHU1998]. The cross-functional core team accounts for

the activities in the Phases Zero and One. The formal or informal project leader

is in charge of support, communication and motivation. The executive

committee is responsible for the evaluation of the project at the checkpoints of

the product development process, especially at the continue/no-go decision

point. Senior management provides the organisational fundamentals, like the

product strategy, portfolio and project resource plans.

The consideration of the organisational context of the company for the

successful integration of the front-end process in existing systems makes this

model so important. Through their studies, Khurana and Rosenthal investigated

the fact that there is no universal system for structuring the fuzzy front-end.

They explicitly indicate that company size, decision-making style, operation

culture and frequency of new product introduction are critical factors for the

implementation of a front-end process model. To resolve the fuzziness, they

recommend a balanced connection of operational and strategic activities by

crossing functional boundaries [KHU1997].

3.2.3 New Concept Development Model

Another fuzzy front-end model with large impact is the New Concept

Development (NCD) model. Based on their industrial research and in

comparison with the concept shown in the previous chapter, Koen and his

colleagues try to explain the fuzzy front-end with the objective to design a

model that represents the character of this phase rather than developing a

reference process. As a continuous progress of the holistic perspective from

Khurana and Rosenthal, the NCD model includes in addition to development

activities also internal and external factors. This theoretical construct provides

a common language and definition of the key components of the front-end of

innovation [KOE2001] and [KOE2002].

Ideation

59

ENGINE

Idea

Selection

Idea

Generation &

Enrichment

Opportunity

Analysis

Opportunity

Identification

Concept

Definition

Figure 3-3: The New Concept Development Model [KOE2002]

Figure 3-3 shows the NCD model, which comprises three major parts

[KOE2001] and [KOE2002]:

1. The influencing factors bundle the peripheral environment of the process.

These factors are on the one hand internal factors such as the organisational

capabilities, business strategy, enabling science and technologies, and on

the other hand also external factors like the outside world (government

policy, environmental regulations, laws concerning patents and

socioeconomic trends), distribution channels, customers and competitors.

The influencing factors are sources of new ideas and affect the entire

innovation process, including the fuzzy front-end as well as the NPD and

commercialisation.

2. The core of the model is the engine. It includes the leadership and corporate

culture and drives the five front-end elements.

3. The five controllable front-end elements consist of the following activities

(no sequential order):

(a) Opportunity Identification concerns the identification of product or

market opportunities, which the company wants to pursue and which

are driven by the company’s objectives.

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(b) Additional information is collected during the Opportunity Analysis to

assess the value of the opportunity. So it is possible to translate the

identified opportunity into specific business and technology

opportunities. The extent of the effort for the analysis depends on the

information needed to reduce uncertainties. Typical questions are: How

attractive is the opportunity? What size has the future development

effort? Does the opportunity fit with the corporate strategy and culture?

How high is the decision makers’ risk tolerance?

(c) The element of Idea Generation and Enrichment represents the birth,

development and maturation of an idea. Through the integration of

customers or users and other external stakeholders, like collaborations

with other companies and institutions, the opportunity is evolutionarily

modified to a concrete idea. Also cross-functional teams enhance the

idea generation. This element of Idea Genesis can also be encouraged

from the outside, for example through new materials available on the

market or random test result in the laboratory. The result of this part of

the NCD is usually a detailed idea description or a product concept.

(d) The output of the idea generation is the subject of the next element,

called Idea Selection. Here a first evaluation of the idea happens. As

the level of information at this stage has a still great deficit, and

financial details are usually very roughly estimated, Koen et al. show

the need for a multidimensional evaluation approach. Possible

assessment criteria are investments, risks, competition, existing

competences and the product benefit.

(e) The last element of the NCD model is the Concept Definition. The

selected ideas have to be concretised by the development of a business

case, which includes estimates for investment in the business or

technology. The formality of the business case depends on several

factors, like the nature of the opportunity, level of resources, the

organisational requirements to proceed to the NPD and the corporate

culture. With the development of the business plan and/or a formal

project proposal the final deliverable has been completed, and the idea

can be transferred from the NCD to the NPD process.

Although several characteristics of the model have great similarities to the

previous concept from Khurana and Rosenthal, this model differs in three

major aspects. First, the inner parts of the NCD were designed as elements

rather than processes. This contains the explicit reference to the iterative nature

of the described activities, also graphically represented through the circular

shape. Ideas are expected to flow and circulate between and among all of the

five front-end elements. Furthermore, the NCD takes into account the influence

of the internal and external environment to specific activities. Finally, the

Ideation

61

intensity of the activities relies on the content of the opportunities, like the

degree of innovation, and on the corporate culture [GLO2011].

3.2.4 Probe and Learn Process

This process highlights the aspect of learning-based strategies concerning the

front-end of innovations. Based on the examination of four successful radical

innovations, Lynn et al. derive the Probe and Learn Process to fulfil the specific

requirements of high technical risk and/or market uncertainty [LYN1996]. The

Probe and Learn Process is particularly designed to reduce uncertainty during

the early phases of innovation and corresponds to the iterative procedure and

learning-based strategy that Verworn and Herstatt recommend for radical

innovations [VER2007b].

For radical innovations, neither the design nor the potential customers are

known at the time of market launch. Therefore Lynn et al. propose an iterative

procedure: Early versions of products will be introduced to test markets,

modified due to the learning experiences and re-tested in the market. These

iterations will be repeated as long as all necessary information has been

generated. At the from Lynn et al. studied product developments, the iterative

learning processes took partly several decades before a successful product

could be introduced on the market [LYN1996].

The first step (“probe”) has the character of an experiment. A first product

version will be introduced to a plausible initial market. For example, General

Electric tested a breast scanner to enter the Computer Axial Tomography (CT)

business in the mid-1970s. Lessons learned from this test were used to develop

a whole-body scanner. At this, the experiments should be targeted to obtain the

required information. The innovation process for developing a whole-body

scanner is shown in Figure 3-4 [LYN1996].

Chapter 3

62

Body

Prototype

7800

1976

Body

Prototype

8800

1978

Body

Prototype

9800

1982

Body

Prototype

9000

Early

‘80s

CT Max

1985

Neuro-

scan

Head CT

Late ‘75

1971

EMI Introduces CT

Head Scanner

Critical

Events

Mid-Late 1970s

Government

Regulations

Certificate of Need

Improved

7800

1977

Breast

CT

1975

= Learning

= Probes

Legend

Figure 3-4: Example of GE’s Probe and Learn Process [LYN1996]

The iterative Probe and Learn Process is the opposite of conventional

sequential stage-gate processes. The emphasis is on learning-based creation of

new knowledge and not on process efficiency. None of the products which

Lynn et al. described, would have passed one of the gates of a sequential

process during the early phases of innovation. Accordingly, the application is

not in the field of incremental innovations, but in the area of high uncertainty,

which can only be reduced through learning. This includes not only radical

innovations but also technical innovations and market innovations. For

technical innovations product tests should have their focus on learning

experiences and for market innovations the test should prioritise feedback from

the market [VER2007b].

Ideation

63

3.2.5 The Stage-Gate Process

One of the most popular models in industry and widespread among

professionals [COO1990], [COO1991], [RUN2002], [WHI1998] is the stage-

gate process by Cooper [COO2011]. It is implemented in companies such as

3M, Procter & Gamble or Hewlett Packard [VER2007b], to name only a few.

The innovation process is divided in individual, sequentially proceeding phases

called “stages”. The various stages are multifunctional. After each phase, there

is the decision about the continuation or termination of the project. This “gate”

decides about the go or no-go. It also will be checked whether the respective

phase was conducted properly and necessary deliverables have been

accomplished. Also, the conditions will be reviewed that a project is ready for

the next phase of the innovation process [VER2007b].

Figure 3-5 shows a stage-gate model for the early phase of innovation. First,

ideas will be generated by the use of internal or external sources. During a first

screening, there is the decision about the allocation of first small resources to

develop the idea with the view to the market and the technology to integrate

both perspectives. These activities happen in parallel. On the basis of these

engrossed information, it will be decided whether the idea will be developed

into a concept at a second gate. If this decision is positive, then the collected

information will result in a product concept. After the development of a

technical concept to implement the idea, the acceptance on the market will be

tested through market studies. Depending of the results of concept tests, the

decision about the implementation of the concept and further allocation of

resources will be made. A cross-functional team is involved in all the individual

gate decisions [VER2007b].

Preliminary

technical

assessment

Concept

generation

(technical)

Product

developmentIdea

generation

Preliminary

market

assessment

Concept

identification

market

studies

Concept

test

market

study

Initial

screening

Preliminary

evaluation

Concept

evaluation

STAGE I

IDEA

STAGE II

PRELIMINARY

ASSESSMENT

STAGE III

CONCEPT

STAGE IV

DEVELOPMENT

Technical/

production

activities

Market

activities

NO GONO GONO GO

GO GO GO

Figure 3-5: Stage-Gate Process of the Early Phase [COO1988]

Chapter 3

64

The main advantages of a stage-gate process lie in the fact that a common

understanding about the steps of the innovation process can be achieved. It

provides clear objectives against which projects can be assessed at each gate.

After each phase, a review of the implementation takes place. Thus, a

previously ad-hoc approach of development is systematised to increase the

efficiency and effectiveness of each stage [VER2007b].

On the other side, the main criticism of the stage-gate process lies in its

sequential design and its lack of flexibility. Also, the first stage-gate models

described by Cooper paid less attention to the early stages, in particular the idea

phase.

In order to integrate also non-directional fundamental research, Cooper and

colleagues introduced an additional process chain, the “discovery stage” for

technical developments which should take into account the experimental nature

of technology-induced innovations. However, this approach also failed in the

detailed description of the ideation, because the phases are very roughly

defined. The activities are much diversified and again there is no concrete

explanation for the generation of ideas.

Actually it seems to be a fact that the question how to manage ideation is still

unsolved in industry. Further research work has to close this gap.

3.3 Managing Ideation

3.3.1 Creativity Freedom versus Structural Organisation

Due to its characteristics and its exposed position in the entire new product

development process, the fuzzy front-end is challenged to shift between the

conflicting priorities of structural organisation and creative freedom. Up to

now, there is no simple recommendation to solve this dilemma through

innovation management. Although science tries to find possible ways, business

practice does not follow. In fact, there are many conflicts, contradictions and

paradoxes. Gassmann and Sutter entitle this situation as “Innovation Paradox”

[GAS2011]. As an example they describe the case that innovations requires

both creativity and discipline in the team to assure the successful launch of

market-oriented products and services.

Nevertheless professionals are still confronted with the question, how the fuzzy

front-end can be structured to channel development-related and decision-

relevant information to select systematically those product ideas which seems

to be the most profitable on the market. But to find a proper way of solving this

Ideation

65

problem, they have to answer the following questions: How much structure is

the creativity of employees able to bear? How can the flow of ideas be

managed, without “nipping creativity in the bud”? Figure 3-6 illustrates this

dilemma between creativity and structure [SAN2007].

Creativity

Achieved by

People

Management

Achieved by

Process

Management

Enabled through

Organisational

Discipline

Enabled through

Organisational

Freedom

Focus on

Customer Needs

Focus on Technological

Possibilities

Resource

Efficiency

Figure 3-6: Dilemma between Creativity and Resource Efficiency in the

Fuzzy Front-End [SAN2007]

Freedom and intense people management encourage creativity. In contrast, the

efficiency of the invested funds can be only achieved by discipline and high

emphasis on process management. Overall, the requirements of the market and

the customer needs dominate the creative technical ideas of the developer

[SAN2007].

The effective management of the early phase of innovation has to generate an

efficient process that gives sufficient freedom for creative development of the

employees. Also, this process needs to be flexible enough to react to changing

market demands, which occurs through new customer needs or new

technological possibilities [SAN2007].

Therefore, a company has to manage the ideation environment in a balanced

mix of overall flexibility and guided focus [NAM2002]. The resulting area of

conflict between creativity and resource efficiency provides the breeding

ground for developing new product ideas [SAN2007].

Verworn and Herrstatt highlight the fact that the degree of uncertainty is on its

highest level in the front-end of innovation processes, and so flexibility has the

highest priority. They suggest that the management of the fuzzy front-end has

to be adapted to the level of uncertainty for the different types of innovations

(already shown in Chapter 2.2.1). Innovation strategies and processes models

have to reflect the respective market and technology uncertainties [VER2007b].

Chapter 3

66

The matrix in Figure 3-7 pictures the four types of innovation, each

representing a different degree of market and technology uncertainty

[VER2007b].

Mark

et

Uncert

ain

ty Hig

hLow

HighLow

Technology Uncertainty

Learning-based strategy

for all areas/functions

Learning-based strategy;

reduction of market risk

Process- and

quantitiative-based

“business as usual”

focus on external

techniques

Market

Innovation

Radical

Innovation

Incremental

Innovation

Technical

Innovation

Learning-based strategy,

reduction of technical

risk

Figure 3-7: Uncertainty Matrix, related Innovation Strategies and Process

Models [VER2007b], [LYN1998b]

Based on this uncertainty matrix it is possible describe the relationship between

the type of innovation and the needed degree of formalisation. For incremental

innovations with low market and technological uncertainty, structured and

process-oriented activities can make a contribution to an efficient

implementation. As technologies and market conditions are largely known, the

planning can be done with a high degree of accuracy and consistency. Also

predictions will be performed with high reliability by using external forecasting

techniques like customer surveys [LYN1998b].

If the market uncertainty is low and the technological uncertainty is high, or

vice versa, the focus should be on building up activities on the existing

knowledge and reducing the residual risk. Splitting the ideation process in

strictly sequential phases will not meet the requirements of reducing technical

or market uncertainty, and minimising the technological uncertainty. Here a

learning-based strategy and an iterative procedure are recommended

[VER2007b].

The most extreme case of innovation represents the radical innovation that

seeks for new markets with new technologies. For these innovations, all areas

and functions have to go gradually through extensive processes of learning and

experience. For this purpose, the process must have the necessary openness to

guarantee iterations and to make the integration of feedback possible at the

right time [VER2007b].

Ideation

67

3.3.2 Idea Sources Inside and Outside the Company

The success of the whole product development process heavily depends on the

input to the ideation system that collects, examines, evaluates and selects new

concepts and ideas. Stevens and Burley [STE1997] have shown in their study

that it takes 3.000 raw ideas to identify approximately 300 novel ideas out of

which only nine are commercially significant. Finally only one single idea

achieves a significant business success. This poor success rate proves that “It

seems we need ideas, and we need lots of them” [DAN2008a]. Thus ideation

processes have great importance. The main purpose of all idea generation

activities is to ensure that the company does not leave the exploration phase of

new product development to chance [STA1992].

Companies have to be aware that idea generation does not happen

informally and without specific purpose [ADA2005],

sporadically [TUC2002], and neither

as a merely in-house method [CHE2003].

In fact, all members of the innovation value chain should participate in a

systematically and continuously organised ideation process to guarantee

sustainable innovation results and business success [NEU2011b]. For example,

several researchers state that ideas developed from a deep understanding of the

customer usually have higher value and better chances of succeeding

[FLI2002].

Internal

Creativity

Workshops

Open Innovation

Employee

Suggestion

System

Lead User

Method

Internal External

Ge

ne

ratio

nC

olle

ctio

n

Typ

e o

f Id

ea

tio

n

Source of Innovation

Figure 3-8: Ideation Matrix: Internal and External Idea Collection and

Generation [BUL2008]

Chapter 3

68

Therefore the major task of ideation is to identify, find and use adequate idea

sources inside and outside the company. Ideation happens right at the

beginning, and it is important to collect and generate ideas by using internal

and external idea sources. Figure 3-8 summarises this consideration by using

four well-known examples [BUL2008].

In her book “Innovation and Ontologies – Structuring the Early Stages of

Innovation Management” [BUL2008], Bullinger deals extensively with the

question of potential sources of ideas. She lists possible external as well as

internal sources of ideas based on various publications, and consequently offers

a good starting point for further exploration of idea sources. Table 3-3 shows

Bullinger’s summary.

Internal

Sources of

Ideas

Research

Joint projects

Literature (books, academic and management journals)

Lectures (fairs, universities)

Analysis of

Environment

Trend reports

Research on patents, market and technologies

Competition (benchmarking, catalogues)

Human Contact

Shareholders

Customers (retailers, consumers)

Partners (suppliers, knowledge brokers, investors,

consultants, shareholders, etc.)

Universities

Competitors

External

Sources of

Ideas

Internal Analysis

Controlling (sales figures, cost of R&D, etc.)

Complaints of consumers

Quality reports

Information of sales representatives

Staff surveys

Communication

Conferences

Team talks

Innovative culture and social activities

Spontaneous Ideas Product and/or process suggestion

Idea for improvement

(Systematic) Idea

Generation

Workshops

Quality circles

Training programs

Communities of practice

Continuous improvement

Table 3-3: Possible Sources of Ideas [BUL2008]

Futhermore, Bullinger introduces the ideation process by Herstatt und Lüthje

[HER2005], which represent a systematic approach for idea gathering and idea

Ideation

69

generation, and combines this process with methods of ideation. The major

steps of this ideation process are:

Initiative to innovate: The motivation for ideation can be related to explicit

occasion or can be designed as a continuous task.

Information gathering: On the one hand related to purpose which includes

ideas that fulfil unsatisfied needs and requirements to serve new target

groups, and on the other hand related to means which are technology-driven

ideas that aim new principles, product architectures or materials.

Idea generation: New ideas occur through the combination of purpose and

means.

Figure 3-9 shows Bullinger’s approach.

Initiative to

Innovate

Information Gathering Idea Generation

Related to

Occasion

Continuous

Limited Search Open Search

Customerconjoint analysis, lead

user method, focus

groups

Retailerconjoint analysis, lead

user method, focus

groups

Environmenttechnological

forecasting

Knowledge Brokertechnological

forecasting, document

analysis

Technical

Documents

document analysis

Stafffocus groups,

document analysisCompetitors

focus groups, techno-logical forecasting

Suppliersfocus groups, techno-

logical forecasting

P

u

r

p

o

s

e

M

e

a

n

s

Idea as a

New

Combination

of Means and

Purposes

Figure 3-9: Process of Ideation Inclusive Methods [BUL2008]

These considerations of stakeholder integration focused on ideation confirm the

assumption already made in Chapter 2.4 and 2.5. To guarantee long-term

success of the management of ideation, the systematic integration of all

stakeholders is a must. And to make this cooperation work, the information

exchange between the several partners has to be assured. In this context,

knowledge and learning are the main levers of ideation.

3.3.3 Knowledge and Learning

Ideation occurs through interactions inside or outside an industrial firm and the

sources can be individuals or groups [ALA2003]. Due to these comprehensive

Chapter 3

70

and profound interactions within the corporate divisions and/or the business

environment the innovation management as the responsible managing link

between ideation and the whole innovation process represents a company-wide

function with influence on the leadership of the whole corporation [DIL1994],

[PLE1996].

In their review of several studies on the success and failure of new product

development, Martínez-Sánchez et al. identified that the use of multifunctional

teams and the adoption of inter-department responsibilities are positively

related to the new product performance, including development and marketing

time [MAR2006]. Therefore the central purpose of the innovation management

is to ensure information flow (e.g. by organisational measures), and to initiate

and continuously guarantee information and knowledge exchange [STO2001].

Many authors articulate the vital role that knowledge and learning play in

innovation activities, underlining the importance of processes and mechanisms

for collecting information and creating knowledge from both internal and

external sources [AYU2006]. In operational effectiveness, the main aspect

involves organisational learning activities that bring understanding of action

outcomes, causal connections and result in higher-order learning [ARG1996]. It

is also important to consider aspects in the knowledge creation process: the

organisation’s internal knowledge base, the acquisition of information and

knowledge from external sources, the integration of internal and external

knowledge and its application to problem solving, the creation of new

knowledge and the generation of innovations from this integration, and finally

the importance of the organisation’s capacity to absorb new knowledge

[SOO2002]. This process of knowledge creation is depicted in Figure 3-10,

according to Soo et al. [DEV2010].

Sources

Formal and Informal Networking

Internal and External Acquisition

Uses

Quality of Problem

Solving/Decision Making

Outcomes

Innovation and

Market/Financial Performance

New organisational

know-how flowing from

activities and decisions

Nature of organisational knowledge,

organisational culture and

industry structure within

which the firm operates

The individual

employee and

organisation’s ability to

absorb information and

know-how

Figure 3-10: The Process of Knowledge Creation and Innovation [DEV2010]

Ideation

71

Scanning the environment, networks and alliances for alternatives and

observing competitors also leads to potential alternative practices and ideas.

Most firms are engaged in these activities simultaneously because they manage

several concurrent projects at different stages in the product development

process [ROT2004].

To capture new ideas from different sources, it is essential to identify potential

sources inside and outside the organisation. Specific methods to access, to

extract and to use their knowledge and their ideas have to be found.

3.4 Implications from this Chapter

Ideation—the procedure of idea generation and selection—happens in the so-

called “fuzzy front-end” of the otherwise well-structured process landscape of

numerous modern organisations. This makes it difficult to structure and manage

ideation in a way that the organisation can capitalise on creativity of internal

and external idea sources to a maximum.

Up to now, several models—mainly in the field of NPD research—exist that try

to solve this dilemma by finding a structure embedded in a defined process to

explain the fuzzy front-end. The most obvious characteristic of these models is

that they assume the existence of an idea without explaining how this idea was

born. Here is a clear gap in research, which we want to bridge with this thesis

by dealing with the overall question about how ideation should be structured

and managed to guarantee market success thanks to ideas leading to

innovations.

73

Part II:

Creation of an Ideation

Process

75

4 Conceptual Framework of the Research

4.1 Point of Departure

The literature review so far (primarily Chapter 2 and 3) has shown that

numerous publications in the field of innovation management as well as FFE

and NPD research discuss the use of different methods and instruments

for the establishment of an adequate business environment,

for the accomplishment of planning and managing complex and

interdependent sub processes,

to increase efficiency and

to control and decrease risks

in connection with innovation processes and new product development from an

abstract-theoretical perspective [STO2001].

From an entrepreneurial point of view, the methods and instruments presented

in the literature can only be used in limited ways due to the missing

consideration of company-specific characteristics [HAM1989]. In this context

Cooper and Kleinschmidt stated: “…what the literature prescribes and what

most firms do are miles apart when it comes to the new product process“

[COO1986].

In view of the all-encompassing definition of innovation management—as

presented in Chapter 2.3—this discrepancy between theory and practice is

understandable. Also, the study by Oliver Wyman Automotive [DAN2007]

illustrated in Chapter 6.2.2 verifies that different and deviating innovation

management strategies exist especially in the automotive supplier industry.

These different systems are legitimate because of the novelty and the variety of

innovations. Thus innovation management is forced to be defined and adjusted

consistently anew.

Chapter 4

76

Now, the inevitable question arises to which extent the innovation management

can be realised in practice within the sector of automotive supplier industry.

However, the organisation of innovation management is exceedingly difficult if

the product development systems are already well-established within the

company. Therefore the innovation management has to concentrate on its

central function which has its origin in the process character of innovation and

is contained in most definitions of innovation management and makes

innovation management so unique in relation to other management tasks:

structuring and managing the early beginning of innovations within the fuzzy

front-end.

4.2 Research Question

The assumption of our research work is that companies have to find ways to

organise the earliest phases of their innovation management with a strong focus

on leveraging ideation within and across their entire organisational structures.

Taking into account the main issues outlined in Chapter 4.1, we can formulate

our central research question as follows:

How is it possible to create a structured approach, which explains

ideation as the core task of the FFE, and to implement this process in

a company’s environment such that it successfully facilitates

innovation management in practice?

This general research question requires first of all a basic understanding of the

particularities of ideation, which Chapter 3 of this thesis attempts to provide.

Given these particularities, the question is how companies can deal with them

to innovate more efficiently and effectively than they do today. A possible

answer is the creation of an ideation process. This leads to the following sub-

questions of the research question:

1. Where do new ideas come from?

2. Which internal and external sources are especially suitable for ideation in

general?

3. What kind of organisational culture supports the generation of ideas?

4. Is it possible to measure the success of ideas, and if yes, how?

5. How do enterprises within and outside the automotive industry structure

their ideation process?

6. Which best practice examples can be derived?

Conceptual Framework of the Research

77

7. Which lessons learned have to be considered during the creation and

implementation of an ideation process?

8. What kind of interfaces and responsibilities are needed for the generation

and selection of ideas?

9. Which further processes, methods and systems are connected with an

ideation process (decision-making process, communication paths, declined

ideas, etc.)?

The challenge that has inspired this thesis is to concentrate on the process of

ideation as the topic of this research work. Thus, the ideation process represents

the core subject of our studies. In this context, indicators and assessment

criteria that help measure the performance of the ideation process, are further

fields of interest. They will help in several ways:

1. During the process, there are several decision points where assessment

criteria play a critical role. So they have to be defined through the whole

ideation process to support the responsible management with the review of

the ideas and go/no-go decisions. Only if the idea fulfils the defined

criteria, it will enter the next phase of the ideation process.

2. Another aspect why indicators and assessment criteria are also important

for this research is the fact that the NPD process follows at the end of the

ideation process. So finally it has to be estimated if one idea is a “good”

(this attribute has to be defined) idea for the transfer to the further entire

innovation process. For this final decision also go/no-go indicators have to

be defined.

3. And in the end, there should be an evaluation of the research project. Here

the major question that the indicators and assessment criteria has to answer

is: Does the implementation of the proposed ideation process fulfil the

targeted expectations?

Point 1 and 2 are highly interlinked with the creation of the ideation process

and these decision criteria will be the subject in Chapter 5.6.2. Point 3

addresses the assessment and interpretation of the results of the case study in

Chapter 6.5.8.

4.3 Research Objectives

The main focus of this thesis is to create an ideation process model suitable for

the automotive supplier industry, which is characterised by a strong process-

orientation, in particular in Western countries. As a practical case study, this

Chapter 4

78

ideation process shall be implemented within the author’s corporate

environment in order to improve the existing innovation process there.

Against this background, the primary research objectives can be defined as

follows:

Creation of a generic ideation process model.

Definition of indicators and assessment criteria to monitor ideas during the

process and rate their commercial success.

Derivation of a company-specific ideation process, and implementation in

the context of the existing innovation process.

Identification of company-specific indicators and assessment criteria and

their interdependencies with the defined generic monitoring and rating

criteria.

The documentation of the case study will explain the specific targets of the

implementation project (see Chapter 6.4).

4.4 Research Approach

4.4.1 Selection of an Appropriate Research Design

Because this thesis has emerged from practical environment, a pragmatic

worldview [CHE1992] dominates the research work. The major elements of

this position are [CRE2009]:

consequences of actions,

problem-centred,

pluralistic,

real-world practice oriented.

This philosophical idea influences the practice of research and shapes the

research design. In the centre of this research work stands the solution to a

practical problem. How must an ideation process that works look like? This

urgent need for action explains the pragmatism [CRE2009].

This general orientation made us choose a qualitative design for our research

[CRE2009]. We like to explore and understand the drivers towards an ideation

process applicable to the automotive supplier industry. Creswell describes the

process of qualitative research as [CRE2009]:


79

involving emerging questions and procedures,

collection of data in the participant’s setting,

data analysis inductively building from particulars to general themes,

researcher making interpretations of the meaning of the data,

flexible structure of the final written report.

Basically the pragmatic worldview allows using mixed methods research,

which combines at least one quantitative method and one qualitative method

[GRE1989]. However, we prefer a multi-method research that includes

exclusively qualitative methods [MOL2010]. For our research, the qualitative

design seems to us the most promising and practicable approach based on the

specific characteristics of our research topic like the dynamics and creativity

that are intrinsic to ideation. In this case, qualitative research is always

recommended when hitherto less explored areas of reality come into

consideration [FLI2009].

In our research design we want to combine two qualitative strategies of inquiry:

the grounded theory and the case study. The first approach, grounded theory, is

a methodology that enables the researcher to develop a general, abstract theory

of a process grounded in the views of participants [CRE2009]. The second

strategy, the case study, allows the researcher to explore profoundly a process

of real-life events, which are bounded by time and activity [YIN2009].

The findings from these two strategies are interlinked and close the gap

between Part II and III of this thesis.

4.4.2 The Role of the Researcher

In principle, the development of the ideation process in this thesis will be

conducted in a team composed of internal and external experts. This operative

research team counts three members: the author, an external consultant, and the

author’s co-supervisor. The author’s insider perspective offered detailed know-

how about typical practices in the daily business at the investigated company.

The outsider perspective allowed a critical distance to this processes and

activities and an in-depth reflection based on experiences from the concerned

business sector, the automotive industry, and also from other sectors.

This team composition is the result of the following considerations concerning

added values:

skills, experiences, and viewpoints of the team members are

complementary;

Chapter 4

80

a clear focus on short-term and company-specific project goals with high

strategic character has to be kept;

responsibility for the quality of the results has to be taken;

openness and flexibility are indispensable to succeed in the real industry

setting.

To sum up, new knowledge about the existing situation of ideation and

associated restrictions could be produced through this collaborative and

interdisciplinary research work.

4.4.3 Methodology

The creation of the ideation process model seeks to link theoretical principles

with industry experiences and happens in two sequential – but interlinked –

steps:

1. Step: The description of a general ideation reference process model, which

can be used as reference and applied to the specific case study, and is also

adjustable to business sectors other than the automotive supplier industry.

2. Step: The description of the company-specific ideation model based on

company-specific modifications of the general ideation process model.

A reference model arises from best practice examples or from theoretical

assumptions and provides the basis for the configuration of optimal sequences

[MEB2008]. In the further course, our research work addresses the

identification and analysis of such best practice examples. Based on our

research findings we are able to define a generic ideation reference process

model in the sense that its general description can give guidance for the

implementation of company-specific ideation processes.

A reference model provides, like traditional process models, a sequence of

activities. It also refers to a concrete scope of applications, and describes

concrete operations [MEB2008]. Furthermore, a reference model is designed

for reuse, but it has to be consistently adjusted to the specific conditions.

Therefore, it has only a recommending character [LAS2006]. This adaptation

of the ideation process model is our second step, which can be achieved by

identifying company-specific needs for action to ensure the practical

implementation. This identification of priority areas of action for the case study

is presented in Chapter 6.5.2.

Following this brief guideline of our research, we will put a focus on analysing

best practice examples. We will derive from them key success factors

representing the main causes for success. On the one hand, these key success


81

factors will be derived from innovation theory, and on the other hand from

documented case studies of companies which are particularly successful in

ideation. A literature review will cover the theory part, and expert interviews

will provide new insights or approve aspects compared to the findings based on

the secondary data. Based on these key success factors the reference process

model will be created. This model provides the basis for the company-specific

ideation process developed in the case study at KSPG. Figure 4-1 summarises

this approach.

Ca

se

Stu

dy

Literature Review

SuppliersOEMs InnovatorsFuzzy Front-

End Research

Innovation

ManagementNPD Research

Success Factor

No. 1

Success Factor

No. 2

Success Factor

No. 3

Success Factor

No. 4

Success Factor

No. …

Success Factor

No. n

Expert Interviews

Best Practices


KSPGIdeation Process

KSPGInnovation Database

KSPGOrganisation

Figure 4-1: Conceptual Framework of the Research Approach

4.4.4 Multi-method Data Collection and Analysis

As pointed out before, the process of data gathering consists of literature

review and expert interviews. The first part of the chosen multi-method

research includes the analysis and evaluation of secondary data, like available

publications and presentations. For the second research path the choice of the

suitable method to capture the data fell on the qualitative, guided expert

interview [WIT2000], because it is particularly used for the reconstruction of

Chapter 4

82

complex knowledge and expertise [MEU1997]. The main goals of the expert

interviews are: 1. the validation and the 2. complementing of the findings from

the secondary data.

Both research methods, literature review and expert interview, will be analysed

together and the findings will influence each other. With this combination of

academic and industry sources we want to find a balance between

recommended and best practice. Figure 4-2 shows how the research methods

are interconnected during the data collection.

Grounded Theory

Case Study

Literature Review of

Innovation Theory and

Best Practices

External Expert

Interviews

Analysis of

Research Data

General Ideation

Process Model

Corporate Situation

Analysis

Company-specific

Ideation Process

Internal Expert

Interviews

Indicators and

Assessment Criteria

Internal Expert

Interviews

Company-specific

Indicators and

Assessment Criteria

Figure 4-2: Interdependencies of the Data Gathering for the Research

Although we use two different research strategies, the grounded theory and the

case study, the respective findings will be exchanged between these two parts

of the research. With this procedure we want to achieve a considerable increase

in quality of the proposed ideation process.

We also collected data beyond the identification of success factors. As

explained in Chapter 4.2, we are interested in finding indicators and assessment

criteria for the monitoring and selection of ideas, and also to evaluate the

ideation process in its efficiency and effectiveness. Moreover, we used the

expert interviews to find detail data concerning special topics highly related to

the ideation process, like e.g. stakeholder integration. Moreover, the identified

findings will be presented in this thesis in the Chapter 5.1 and 5.2 but also find

their way into the subsequent description of the ideation process.


83

Finally, as with any exploratory research based on the grounded theory

strategy, we adopted an iterative research process of data collection, analysis

and validation [GLA1967], so that, for example, immediate feedback—

especially from internal experts of the case study’s company—leads to

improvements of the process. A continuous dialogue on the practical

applicability in the case study ensures transparency and acceptance of the

ideation process at the top management level, which is a very important

prerequisite for the successful implementation of the ideation process.

85

5 Ideation Process Model

5.1 Literature Review

5.1.1 Applied Method

Innovations at a corporate level have to increase the profit of the company

sustainably. Therefore the question is: “Which instruments of the innovation

management facilitate innovation success?” This is the business-oriented

perspective that focuses on the cause of corporate innovation success, the so-

called success factors, and which differs essentially from [HAU2011]:

the natural-scientific / technical perspective: focus on a technical function

of the innovation;

the socio-scientific perspective: search for the social circumstances to

prosper innovations;

the political-scientific perspective: concentrate on objectives and

possibilities to influence politically innovation activities and

the economic perspective: examines the macroeconomic prerequisites and

effects of innovation activities.

In the centre of our research work stands obviously the business-oriented

perspective. Thus, our literature review exclusively aims for secondary data

with business-related background. This limitation is reasonable, because the

term innovation is highly interdisciplinary, so an efficient and effective

literature review needs a well-defined scope.

To organise the literature review, Creswell recommends a literature map

[CRE2009]. This map is a useful approach to explain, “how the proposed study

adds to, extends, or replicates research already completed” [CRE2009]. With

such a map we have the possibility to summarise our main fields of research

interest in an understandable, clear and traceable manner (Figure 5-1).

Chapter 5

86

Ideation Process Model

FEE Models

Success Factors

of Ideation Process

Fuzzy Front-End ResearchSuccess Factor Research in


New Product Development

Research

Success Factors

for Idea Generation

and Selection

Design of

Processes

NPD Processes

Success Factors

for Starting NPD

Process

Design of

Processes

Indicators and

Assessment

Criteria

Success Factors for

Overall Innovation

Success

Success Factors for

Idea Generation

and Selection

Success Factors

for Innovative

Business Environment

Strong Influence

Small Influence

Indicators and

Assessment

Criteria

Link

Figure 5-1: Literature Map for the Literature Review

This literature map is a guideline to start our literature review in a well-

structured way right from the beginning. First, we want to focus on fuzzy front-

end research, which has already been introduced in Chapter 3.2. Here we

expect the greatest potential to find the appropriate success factors for the

planned mapping to create an ideation process model. Also, we are looking for

recommendations for the design of the ideation process in this research field.

Strongly connected to the FFE theory is the New Product Development (NPD)

research. Here we want to explore the first part of the NPD process to find

possible indicators and assessment criteria as already pointed out in Chapter

4.2. Also the typical form of the NPD process may influence our ideation

process model. Finally, we want to draw our attention to the literature of

innovation management, where the research on success factors is already a

well-established research field on its own. Here the main focus is on the overall

success of innovation projects. So, we have to break down these findings to our

field of research: idea generation and idea selection. The results will help us

create our ideation process model by the establishment of an innovative

business environment and the achievement of improved ideation and innovation

success.

5.1.2 Findings

Basic Findings

Our prior literature research—especially in the field of ideation (see Chapter 3)

—reveals that several aspects for the success of an ideation process are already


87

illustrated or at least implicitly included in the theoretical discourse. Other

characteristics are proven facts or common sense in industry practice (see

Chapter 6.2). With this solid base from the state of the art we can define some

starting points for the creation of the ideation process.

As described in our literature map, our first priority is to extract basic

recommendations from fuzzy front-end research. So the first question we are

facing is how the ideation process will look like? Beginning with this question

of the design of our ideation reference process model we focus on the most

typical representation in practice, the stage-gate process.

Reviewing the publications from Cooper, especially his book “Winning at New

Products: Creating Value Trough Innovation” that represents the quintessence

of his stage-gate research, no final solution for an ideation process can be found

[COO2011]. However, we believe that the stage-gate approach will help

because it is largely spread within industry, and is also used for all other

processes at KSPG. Moreover, our literature research shows that Khurana and

Rosenthal’s model, which provides us the most influencing content-related

foundation, basically follows the stage-gate process structure, which means that

their front-end model is divided in several stages combined with decision gates

[KHU1997], [KHU1998].

Another important aspect for the creation of an ideation process results from

our examination of the New Concept Development Model by Koen et al.

[KOE2001], [KOE2002]. The iterative character of this model convinced us to

build in feedback loops and alternative entry levels for impulses, opportunities

and ideas.

Finally, our lesson learned from the Probe and Learn Process by Lynn et al.

[LYN1996] is the fact that allowing making mistakes during innovation

activities is essential to learning and creating new knowledge. Through this way

of thinking, a change of the corporate environment can be initiated and an

improvement of the innovation culture may be achieved. In their exploratory

study, Brem and Voigt [BRE2007] point out that innovation culture is a highly

relevant aspect in view of personal motivation. One of their interview partners

stated that “if an idea gets through into a successful innovation, no one will

notice. But if it fails, then you will be blamed for that. So finally, you have no

chance to win something”. So Brem and Voigt come to the conclusion that a

company has to motivate its employees otherwise no above-average results can

be expected [BRE2007].

After defining these general assumptions concerning the creation of the

ideation process model, we deepen our literature review with regard to success

factors of ideation.

Chapter 5

88

Key Success Factors Based on Literature Review

Success factor research of innovation can look back on nearly five decades of

history and has established itself especially in business administration, where

the success-centred view dominates the understanding of innovation

management. Innovations in corporations have to increase profit in a

sustainable manner. Based on this purpose, the question arises of identifying

the drivers for innovation success [HAU2011].

So the success factor research, which represents an independent, empirically

oriented approach, enjoys great popularity in literature. Not only literature of

innovation management, also the literature of NPD deals with the topic of

success factors, and the lines between these two research fields are often

blurred. But the underlying subject of all these studies is exclusively success,

which is difficult to define concretely due to its multi-dimensionality and multi-

causality. However, numerous empirical studies are engaged in the central issue

to find a universally valid concept that helps companies when they risk entering

the market with an innovation [HAU2011].

Hauschildt and Salomo give a very profound and also critical summary

concerning the research area of success factors [HAU2011]. Also Schmalen

gives a very detailed overview [SCH2005]. She examined nearly 60 studies

concerning success factors and starts her literature review with the study “Why

new products fail” by Cochran and Thompson from 1964 [COC1964]. They

already identified as most important factors for product failure: insufficient

market analysis, existing product deficits and high production costs.

In literature on new product development and management of technological

innovation, Rothwell et al. [ROT1974] pioneered the research of success

factors with the SAPPHO study that was based on a comparative analysis of

“paired” successful and unsuccessful technological innovations in the field of

chemical processes and scientific instruments. The results of the SAPPHO

project confirmed that five underlying factors strongly differentiating between

innovation success and failure:

understanding of user needs,

efficiency of development,

characteristics of managers,

efficiency of communications and marketing, and

sales efforts.

Cooper and Kleinschmidt continued this research work and presented their

study, named NewProd, in 1979 [COO1979], [HAU2011]. Through the

following years they constantly progress their research work and in 1999


89

Cooper highlights the following success factors in product innovation that are

actionable and controllable [COO1999]:

1. Solid up-front homework – superior definition of the product and

assessment of the project;

2. Voice of the customer – high quality marketing actions and dedication to

the market and customer inputs throughout the project;

3. Product advantage – differentiated product, unique customer benefits and

superior value for the customer;

4. Sharp, stable and early product definition – definition of the product before

the development begins;

5. Well-planned and adequately resourced market launch – proficiently

executed launch;

6. Tough go/kill decision points or gates during the process – building

funnels, not tunnels;

7. Cross-functional teams with strong project leaders – organisation of

accountable, dedicated, supported cross-functional teams with strong

leadership;

8. International orientation to meet international requirements – building

international teams, doing multi-country market research and designing

global product (one version for the entire world) or “glocal” product (one

product concept, one development effort, but perhaps several variants to

satisfy different international markets).

These major studies in the 1970s assist the breakthrough of the success factor

research. Since then, an enormous amount of research has gone into studying

the factors of innovation success [GRI1996]. Consequently, this high number of

studies demands for meta-analyses to cluster the success factors from several

single studies [BAL1997], [MON1994], [HEN2001]. Hauschildt and Salomo

summarise the results of this meta-analysis as follows [HAU2011]:

Innovations are successful if they

occur in an innovation-friendly culture that acknowledge the work-shifting

nature of the achievements;

lead to a technologically innovative product, which

donates the customer a novel benefit, and if

this product is developed based on professional market research as well as

introduced on the market after a strategic planning.

Chapter 5

90

This process requires also dedicated efforts of key persons, who preferably

already have experience with innovation projects, and professional project

management [HAU2011].

Focusing even more on NPD literature, Ernst [ERN2002] gives a very

impressive review of the empirical literature regarding success factors of NPD.

He summarise the findings of 30 years of NPD research in a compact and

structured way, by categorising the identified success factors according to

Cooper and Kleinschmidt’s [COO1995] five elements for a company’s overall

new product performance: 1. NPD process (including customer integration), 2.

organisation, 3. role and commitment of senior management, 4. culture and 5.

strategy. Table 5-1 shortly presents the essential conclusions of Ernst’s

extensive literature review [ERN2002]:

Category Success factors of new product development

NPD process

(including

customer

integration)

Existence of a formal or informal NPD process in the company

Within the process, the following activities and/or contents are of

specific importance for the success of new products:

Quality of planning before the beginning of the development phase;

this necessary preparatory work includes:

initial, rough evaluation of ideas

the execution of technical and market-oriented feasibility studies

commercial evaluation of NPD project

description of project concept, target market and the relative

increase in benefits of the new product for the customer in

comparison with a competitor’s product

Continuous commercial assessment of the NPD project during all

phases of the NPD process:

selection of the most promising projects before entering the

development phase

a process-oriented and on-going controlling approach can help to

decide to terminate a project at certain milestones

the timely and consequent termination of unprofitable NPD

projects, which do not meet previously defined goals, is important

The orientation of the NPD process to the market requirements

based on updated market research, which includes:

understanding and evaluation of customer needs

accurate prognosis of the market potential

observation of the competition

execution of test markets

No final conclusion about customer integration: There are hints that

imply that the advantage of customer integration increases when it

is used in the early and the later phases of the NPD process.

Organisation

The project organisation must ensure that the progress of the NPD

project will not be negatively effected by daily routines and/or

departmental influences

People be specifically assigned to the NPD team who have enough

time to work on the project

The NPD team should be cross-functional: members from several


91

areas of expertise encourage interfunctional communication and co-

operation and as a result can contribute to the resolution of possible

interface problems

A strong and responsible project leader: this leader must have the

necessary qualifications and sufficient know-how, and be able to

devote himself sufficiently to the project

Substantial autonomy to the NPD team: responsibility for the entire

project and not only for parts of it

Commitment of the project leader and the team members to the

NPD project: this can possibly be fostered by the implementation of

project-specific material or non-material performance incentives

Intensive communication and interactive relationships among team

members during the course of the NPD process

Role and

commitment of

senior

management

Senior management’s recognition of the value of the new

products, reflected in adequate material support of the NPD

programme

Adequate allocation of resources must go beyond the R&D

budget, since expenditures for market research and market launch of

the new product are important for the success of new products

Culture

An innovation-friendly climate in the organisation together with

risk-taking behaviour

Undertake activities to encourage the emergence of individuality

and creativity

Establishment of supporting and motivating elements, such as the

existence of a systematic scheme for suggesting new products or

the availability of corporate venture capital

Product champion / promoter

Strategy

The NPD programme ought to have a defined and clearly

communicated strategic framework which offers orientation to the

sum of single NPD projects

The NPD programme should have a long-term thrust

Senior management should regularly review whether the aims of

the entire NPD programme are being reached

Table 5-1: Success Factors of New Product Development [ERN2002]

All in all, this extensive overview of NPD success factors offers us a large pool

of aspects we can revert to. Most importantly, these success factors show us

what is important for the overall success of the NPD. So we can derive

characteristics for the ideation process model to prepare ideas best before the

beginning of the product development on the one hand, and to organise ideation

best to achieve success in the following NPD process on the other hand.

Searching more deeply for success factors concerning the fuzzy front end of the

NPD process, Khurana and Rosenthal emphasise—based on the findings from

Brown and Eisenhardt’s research work [BRO1995]—that NPD literature can be

organised into three streams [KHU1998]:

1. Rational plan: Evaluation of typical NPD problems and success factors.

Chapter 5

92

2. Communication web: Focus on the impact of organisational structures,

roles and processes on information processing and communications

effectiveness and overall NPD performance.

3. Disciplined problem solving: Explores how people can work together to

effectively participate in the complex problem solving involved in NPD.

In their view, Khurana and Rosenthal state that none of these three streams in

themselves can explain the complexity of the fuzzy front-end sufficiently.

Therefore they build upon the results from all three streams of research in sum.

Khurana and Rosenthal’s findings from in-depth case studies of the front-end

practices in 18 business units from 12 U.S. and Japanese companies cumulated

in their holistic front-end model (see Chapter 3.2.2) but also reveals on an

operational level several approaches that work or does not work in a corporate

environment [KHU1998]. Table 5-2 shows the best practices that head towards

a holistic front-end model:

What Works What Doesn’t Work

Treating product strategy as an explicit input

to the front-end

Viewing product strategy as a periodic

activity independent of NPD process

Translating product strategy and business

goals into explicit product and market

objectives

Starting product and market objectives

without direct reference to overarching

strategy

Ensuring alignment of new product plans,

R&D projects, process development, and

marketing projections by encouraging

communication among R&D, engineering,

and marketing functions

Independently engaging in some or all of

these activities

Considering the complete set/portfolio of

product development projects while making

decisions (e.g. explicit linkages across

multiple development projects regarding

common technologies, market information

and allocation of resources)

Making isolated project-specific new product

decisions

Considering overall business justification

(e.g. consider issues of product distribution

as part of product definition)

Viewing NPD as only dealing with the

performance of the product

Having a “process owner” to help drive the

front-end and give it breadth and scope

Dividing the front-end into a set of

independent activities

Matching core team capabilities to the role

played by the senior management executive

review group

Having executive reviews that are routine

exercises

Using a process orientation or a collaborative

culture, to ensure that key development

requirements are not ignored

Having no formal process, or making the

process tot rigid


93

Explicitly defining the proposed product to

clarify concept and secure early agreement

Freezing product definition too early when

market changes quicker than new product

cycle, or keeping it too fluid such that

nobody rally understands it

Adapting the front-end process to the

product (incremental or radical), market

(market leader or not; consumer, industrial or

OEM customer), or organisational (relative

experience, maturity and roles of core team

and executive review group) context

Following a “cookie cutter” approach to the

front-end for all types of new products,

markets, or organisational settings

Table 5-2: Best Practices for Front-end Success [KHU1998]

Another very insightful study in the field of NPD literature, which Ernst does

not include in his literature review, comes from Zien and Buckler [ZIE1997]

who investigated twelve highly innovative companies in the United States,

Europe and Japan. One very relevant aspect for our own research work is the

fact that Zien and Buckler identified that leaders of continually innovative

companies are aware of the fuzzy front-end of innovations and centre this

innovation phase in the companies’ activities [ZIE1997]. This finding confirms

the relevance of our own research work.

Zien and Buckler investigated seven key principles, which are universal but

each of the researched companies has its own company-specific implementation

practice. Also these factors are not only relevant for the three crucial stages of

innovation (the fuzzy front-end, the NPD, and the commercialisation), they also

influence sustainably the whole company’s innovative capacity over time.

These seven factors are shown in Table 5-3 [ZIE1997]:

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94

No. Principle Short Description

1 Sustain faith and treasure identity as

an innovative company

Leaders demonstrating in every decision and

action that innovation is important to their

company

2 Be truly experimental in all functions,

especially in the front-end

Encouraging purposeful evolution and

encouraging employees to try new things

3

Structure “really real” relationships

between marketing and technical

people

Developing real relationships between

marketing and technical people

4 Generate customer intimacy

Generating customer intimacy by encouraging

their employees to interact closely with

customers

5 Engage the whole organisation

Engaging the whole organisation in

understanding that innovation is the

fundamental way that the company brings

value to its customers

6 Never forget the individual

Continuing to value the individual and set an

environment that is conductive to high

motivation

7 Tell and embody powerful and

purposeful stories

Telling powerful stories that reinforce the

principles and practices of innovation

Table 5-3: Seven Key Principles at work in Highly Innovative Companies

[ZIE1997], [KOE2002]

This study confirms the findings up to now and reveals principles of highly

innovative companies, which generates an environment where innovation and

high productivity influence can prosper. This confirms the aspect that an

innovation friendly corporate culture is the fundamental for a working front-end

process including ideation [KOE2002].

Although there is a very large number of publications concerning success

factors for the NPD (including the fuzzy front-end) or the whole innovation

process, there is a lack of publications that explicitly refer to success factors for

idea generation and idea selection. Mostly idea generation is only mentioned as

a success factor of the NPD without further description, see e.g. [COO1984a],

[COO1984b], [COO1984c], [COO1995], [COO2006a], [COO2007a] and

[BAR1995]. The same applies to idea selection, which is implicitly included in


95

the success factors of continuous commercial assessment of the NPD project,

see e.g. [ROT1974], [DWY1991b], [PAR1994] and [COO2007a].

The research work from Martinsuo and Poskela [MAR2011] is one of the

recent studies, which explicitly investigates how the use of evaluation criteria is

associated with innovation performance in the front-end of innovation. They

found that idea and concept evaluation has an important position in the front-

end of innovations because it links product complexity and strategic

opportunity. Martinsuo and Poskela’s findings confirm the need of a holistic

but informal assessment system which is oriented towards the company’s

development objectives [MAR2011].

Stevens et al. [STE1999] show with their study that selecting creative

individuals to work in the early stages of NPD has a positive effect on the NPD

process. So it is proven again, that creativity, which can be defined as the

process of generating ideas [LAW2001], is an important enabler for ideation

and crucial for the overall innovation success [STE1999].

5.1.3 Recommendations for the Ideation Process Model

The overwhelming amount of publications concerning success factors in the

field of innovation management and NPD literature including fuzzy front-end

research offers us a wide range of starting points how we can create our

ideation process based on success factors. Now we have to identify those

aspects that must be taken into consideration regarding the ideation process.

The literature deals almost exclusively with the success of new products,

without responding to the particularities of ideation within the innovation

process, which form the backbone of overall innovation success. Therefore we

focus on special parts of the literature to find recommendations which can be

easily transformed to ideation because some of the findings—especially in the

NPD research—lead to basic conditions which have to be considered in an

ideation process.

Based on our literature review we identified several relevant aspects that

influence the success of an ideation process. From our point of view, these

aspects are of practical importance and are actionable in a corporate

environment. These aspects are:

top management commitment,

involvement of a broad mass of employees,

resources for ideation activities in terms of time and budget,

analysis of market situation,

Chapter 5

96

leaders of ideation activities,

integration of internal and external stakeholders in the ideation process,

interdisciplinary ideation teams,

promoters of ideas,

mentors of idea promoters,

creativity,

idea communication and (internal) idea marketing,

systematic and transparent pursuit of ideas,

practical indicators to monitor and select ideas,

rewarding schemes.

We like to see these aspects confirmed in the following expert interviews as

important, and we want to identify new issues that are really crucial in practice

in the view of our interview partners. So we added this list of possible success

factors to our interview guideline (see Appendix). For us, the relevance to

business operations remains our research focus.

5.2 Expert Interviews

5.2.1 Applied Method

Based on the findings from the literature review, we conducted qualitative

interviews with experts in the field of ideation and innovation management to

validate and complete our previous results from theory. The aim of these

interviews was to survey external experts first, in order to explore current best

practices. With the interviews of external experts we wanted to get a stimulus

from outside the case study’s company to assure learning from others. Internal

expert interviews were part of the case study.

Therefore, the selection of the experts for the qualitative survey was done

according to certain criteria, which were considered as important for both the

research question and for the subsequent analysis of the data. The most

important criterion was the professional expertise of the persons concerning

ideation and innovation management.

Another broader selection criterion was to focus on best practice examples.

Thus, we identified companies from the automotive industry (OEMs and

suppliers) but also from other business sectors, like telecommunication


97

equipment manufacturing, machinery and process technology, chemical

manufacturing, and computer services. All these companies are internationally

renowned for their innovation powers. This is confirmed by official ratings, like

Forbes-List of World’s Most Innovative Companies [GRE2011],

Thomson Reuters 2011 Top 100 Global Innovators [THO2012],

Businessweek/Boston Consulting Group 2010 List of the 50 Most

Innovative Companies in the World [EIN2010].

Some of them are Innovation Award Winners [SCH2011], [GEA2011],

[KEA2012].

Concerning the sampling of the industry sectors and the respective companies

which have come into consideration, we clustered them into three target groups.

Within these selected companies we tried to find interviewees who fulfilled our

expert profile. Because this research is exploratory by nature, a suitable sample

of interview candidates was selected also on the basis of pragmatic reasons, like

access and willingness to participate.

In some cases, especially for companies from non-automotive sectors, we found

already published secondary data, like e.g. interviews in journals or

publications from relevant congresses. Gathering data from these available

sources helped us to enlarge our sample and enrich our analysis without

additional survey costs and time effort.

Finally, the design of the external expert interviews can be outlined as follows:

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98

Target

Group Scope Reason for sampling

Data collection

procedures Companies

1

German

automotive

OEMs

German automotive

industry is regarded

as innovation leader

in the industry

Access available to

interview

participants or

secondary data

Interviews

Analyses of

various

publications

from relevant

congresses

OEM 1

OEM 2

OEM 3

OEM 4

2

Successful

German

automotive

suppliers (Tier 1

supplier)

The case study’s

company belongs to

this segment

Comparison is

interesting and

necessary

Interviews

Analyses of

various

publications

from relevant

congresses

Supplier 1

Supplier 2

Supplier 3

3

Worldwide

recognised

innovation leaders,

non-sector-specific

Inspiration from

interdisciplinary

perspectives on

other industries

Interviews

Analyses of

various

publications

from relevant

congresses

Innovator 1

Innovator 2

Innovator 3

Innovator 4

Innovator 5

Innovator 6

Table 5-4: Survey Design of External Expert Interviews

Interviews with experts experienced in ideation and innovation management

were semi-structured and based on open ended questions designed

appropriately to the topic of the creation and implementation of ideation

processes, which represents our research question defined in Chapter 4.2. This

kind of survey offers the possibility to fully exploit the experts’ knowledge,

because it is less rigid than a survey using a completely structured

questionnaire based on closed questions [MEH1995].

Basically the interview starts with some icebreaker questions [CRE2009],

which are easy to answer and focus on the interviewees’ personal background,

followed by more detailed questions regarding the following core issues:

the origin of ideas,

internal and external sources of ideas (stakeholder integration),

organisational culture that supports idea generation,

existence of an ideation process,

best practices / lessons learned,


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indicators and assessment criteria to measure the success of ideas and to

support the selection of ideas,

success factors of ideation processes,

interfaces and responsibilities concerning ideation,

additional processes, methods and systems that are connected with an

ideation process.

To support the interviewer in making the interviewed experts address all key

issues, an interview guideline had been developed. This guideline also helped

compare different interviews and facilitate their analysis without forcing the

interviewee to follow the guideline’s structure exactly. During the interview it

was possible to leave out some questions, to change the order of the questions,

to add questions, or to deepen specific discussion points. This demands high

competence of the interviewer to receive the relevant information from the

experts. The complete interview guideline is presented in the Appendix.

In March 2012, all three members of the research team (see Chapter 4.4.2)

conducted face-to-face and telephone interviews. The interview language was

German, and face-to-face interviews were carried out at the respective expert’s

place of work. The confidential interviews were voluntary and the experts were

not rewarded for participating. Any identifying information regarding the

individual interviewees was not included in the analysis. Participants were

given copies of the data collected in order to edit or make any amendments to

their responses.

During the interviews, every research team member took detailed written notes

highlighting major themes. The interviews were transcribed separately to

ensure inter-rater reliability [ARM1997], and compiled into one report.

To close the process of analysis there were two workshops where all three

members of the research team met to discuss the findings and map the

identified success factors to the proposed ideation reference process model. So

the workshops delivered a solid base for the creation of the ideation process,

which was further detailed in permanent exchange between the members of the

research team and other internal and external experts.

Based on the qualitative research characteristic of flexible reporting

[CRE2009], we dispense with descriptive statistical format to figure the

finding. In fact, we present our results as textual summary in the following

Chapter 5.2.2. Also, for reasons of confidentiality we ensure that it is not

possible to draw conclusions about individual companies or interview partners.

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5.2.2 Findings

First of all, we want to point out that all our interview partners were very

interested in the research topic, as most of them had problems with ideation in

the past or still struggling with the generation and selection of ideas.

Consequently, our interviews brought us very valuable insights into our core

issues (see Chapter 5.2.1), which we like to present in the following.

Origins of Ideas / Stakeholder Integration

In principle, there are two general problems related to ideas: Either there are

too many or too few ideas, nothing in between. It seems to be very difficult to

achieve a continuous flow of ideas, which can be managed in a practicable

manner.

Whereas the first type of problem—the situation of too many ideas—confronts

companies with the problem of efficient resourcing and the effective idea

selection, the second type of problem—the situation of too few ideas—causes

much more effort. In our sample, the problem of too few ideas dominates the

corporate reality.

However, one of our interviewees—Supplier 1—stated that since the company

which he is working for opens the contribution of ideas to customers via

internet, the amount of ideas is so high that it is difficult to handle a prompt

feedback to the idea contributors, which is very important in his opinion. The

management of such a feedback team absorbs capacities of the existing process.

Based on our prior research and the stakeholder analysis at KSPG

[NEU2011d], we confronted the interviewees with our hitherto existing list of

potential internal and external stakeholders, and they—especially OEMs and

suppliers—confirmed it almost to the whole extend. In their opinion, only sales

representatives are not as important as in the past. Most salesmen having had a

local office at the customer site had to leave their former exposed position, as

the increasing significance of electronic web-based customer portals makes

their physical presence obsolete.

The participants drew our attention more to another internal stakeholder group,

the after-sales. From the interviewees’ point of view, the contact to the end

users, like partners from engine repairers and independent workshops, may

provide other insightful aspects that may never come into discussion during

meetings with OEMs.

In the group of external stakeholders, the government has—beside the

customers—the most prominent role for automotive OEMs and suppliers.

Regulations concerning CO2 emissions, financial penalties and legal sanctions

are the main drivers for technical innovations. These actual and future


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requirements to reducing CO2 make it indispensable to find innovative

solutions to reach these restrictive objectives from legislation.

In summary, we can conclude that the following stakeholders are the most

promising sources for ideas in the sector of the automotive industry:

1. Internal Stakeholders: executives/management, expert departments

(includes R&D, sales, purchasing, quality, manufacturing), external

employees, after-sales, cross-functional teams, administration (includes:

HR, Legal Affairs, Logistics, Controlling, Finance, Accounting, IT).

2. External Stakeholders: customers, competitors, science, society,

government, suppliers.

Particularly our interview partners from German automotive OEMs see the

need of external stakeholder integration. This is in line with the conclusions

from Ili et al. about open innovation in the automotive industry: the Open

Innovation aspect is becoming more and more significant for the automotive

industry during this decade [ILI2010a].

OEM 2 sees the potential of cross-industry innovations, but actually there are

still problems with the practical implementation to integrate external partners.

Comparing this result with our findings concerning the innovation leaders in

the non-automotive sector, we see that they are one step ahead in the transition

from closed to open innovation.

Organisational Culture

This discussion about open innovation leads us directly to the question: “What

kind of organisational culture supports the generation of ideas?” With regard to

this central question, we first examined our innovation leaders.

The spirit of openness is not only seen as a synonym for external innovative

relationships in these companies, rather the contrary: in these companies an

open innovation culture predominates. This means that these innovative

companies possess a distinctive and open communication. This communication

style leads to immediate feedback and constructive discussions of ideas with

colleagues or direct hierarchical superiors. At Supplier 2, innovation

management represents a competent partner to discuss ideas from market and

technology viewpoints. Through this recognition the employees feel that they

are taken seriously and are therefore highly motivated in contributing ideas.

We see that in these innovative companies innovation is a subject of every

employee, and not only a special group of persons. At Innovator 2 and OEM 4,

the idea contribution is part of each employee’s (annual) target commitments.

Innovator 3 goes one step further in allowing employees to spend a certain

proportion of their working time on “free” projects, which facilitates an

entrepreneurial spirit and culture.

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All in all, we identified that an open innovation culture within the organisation

is a major prerequisite in order to implement an effective ideation process.

Existence of an Ideation Process

By asking our interview partners about the existence of an ideation process in

their companies, two interviewees answered with a clear “Yes”. At Innovator 2

and OEM 4 there is a decentralised organisation structure and management of

ideas. But as we investigated these two cases more deeply, we found out that

these processes address the continuous improvements of processes within the

own company and are linked to the corporate suggestion system. According to

our definition of ideation, see especially Chapter 3.1.1, this kind of idea

management does not align with our description of the term “ideation”. Our

focus is on ideas for products, services or business models with

commercialisation potential on the market.

In case of Innovator 1, we discovered a very interesting approach. This

company started to pilot a system for collaborative idea management called

IdeaBoxes in 2008, fully integrated in the company’s IT infrastructure and

aligned with the collaboration strategy. This method goes beyond the usual

suggestion boxes and includes corporate improvements and product

innovations. All employees are responsible to submit ideas. Thanks to this

bottom up participation, until mid-2010 the company collected over 9.000

ideas, 15.000 comments and about 150 “idea boxes”, which represent defined

top responsibilities for specific innovation needs. Through viral internal

marketing and several focused idea generation campaigns the company has

been able to boost such an enormous amount of ideas. Decentralised box

managers are responsible for handling ideas within her or his box(es), which

includes the evaluation, claiming and awarding of ideas. The ambitious next

step is to open up this system to customers and other external partners.

This is a very outstanding example and demonstrates a real exception within

our sample of explored practical cases. The majority of our interview partners

emphasise that their company does not have any systematic idea generation and

selection process dedicated to product idea management. The handling of ideas

is more a sporadic task there, occurring only when it is explicitly needed.

Our interviewees from automotive OEMs and suppliers proved the fact that

they are very process-oriented, which means strict hierarchies and entrenched

structures trap creative work. So they see the need for a structured ideation

process because of two main reasons:

1. the processing of ideation is a must, otherwise in their process-oriented

corporate culture these innovative activities are not visible for top

management, and the needed recognition and resourcing of ideas is not

granted, and


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2. a process can support as some sort of guidance to structure creative work

and help not to forget important steps during the ideation.

Best Practices / Lessons Learned

OEM 2 pinpointed a very important aspect: the not-invented-here (NIH)

syndrome [KAT1982]. Our interview partner described that there is a strong

resistance in his company against external knowledge. He also stated that, from

his point of view, ideas must not focus only on technical aspects. Furthermore

he sees the potential in finding the ideal balance between communication

potential and technological novelty of an idea. And here he sees the possibility

that the adaptation of external knowledge may have a positive effect.

Innovator 4 gives us another very interesting insight. In this company, planning

is the challenge and proves to be their best practise. They have a quarterly

review process that examines every core product and engineering area against

product performances, financial data and the strategic positioning. This review

leads to improved planning and possible shift of finance. To facilitate these

allocation decisions, no business units exist in this innovative company. From

their point of view, the problem with conventional business unit managers is

that they defend their resources and are not willing to share them with other

business units. At Innovator 4 there is a kind of trustful mindset amongst the

employees, because they are confident that if they need the capital and

workforce for a promising project they will get it immediately.

These two lessons learned may represent very particular cases but they imply

that internal obstacles like the NIH syndrome have to be avoided, or in the

extreme case a company has to think about long-established organisational

structures to become more innovative. Thinking out of the box helps leverage

creativity and the birth of ideas.

Indicators and Assessment Criteria

When we asked for indicators and assessment criteria to measure the success of

ideas and to support the selection of ideas, Supplier 1 answered: “Everything

depends on the right selection.” He wanted to express that assessment criteria

are important. In his eyes, a workable filter during the selection of ideas is to

ask the following questions:

What does the customer (OEM, end-user) need?

What do the others (competitors) do?

What kinds of (technology) developments exist?

Are there legal restrictions?

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Furthermore, Supplier 1 added that during the selection of ideas, methods like

portfolio and/or SWOT analyses, OEM surveys, expert interviews, and

workshops concerning “Top 10 Ideas” might possibly be helpful.

Innovator 6 brought assessment criteria in the centre of our attention that

ensures the strategic fit of the ideas. This means that the indicators have to

measure if the new product ideas are able to fulfil the company’s overall

strategic objectives. Therefore we wanted to know, what possible indicators for

evaluating an idea’s ability of strategic fit can be.

Our interview guideline includes a list of several possible indicators, which are

already used at the author’s company to some extent. The discussions with the

interviewed experts gave us the possibility to identify the adequate assessment

criteria to evaluate the strategic fit of an idea. The result is the following list of

indicators, which are complemented with the related core questions:

Market area/technology field: Will the company’s strategy be fulfilled?

Technical feasibility: How big is the technical risk for the company?

Corporate risk: How big is the corporate risk for the company?

Required know-how: Is the relevant know-how already available in the

company?

Required resources/capacities: Can internal resources/capabilities of the

company be used or are external resources / capabilities needed?

Required workforce: How much workforce is required for the project?

Budget requirements: What is the required estimated budget?

Advanced performance (basic input/expense): What amount of necessary

input in terms of resources, costs, investments and any acquisition costs for

product and process deployment must be provided?

The expert interviews helped us also with the clustering of the remaining

assessment criteria from our list. We decided to name this assessment

dimension “Future Potential”. These indicators and related questions are in

particular:

Level of innovation/novelty degree: What is the distance of the innovation

over previous solutions? Note: The level of innovation depends on whether

the new product is a market, a business or a production novelty.

Exclusiveness: How can the patent situation be assessed with respect to

property rights/patents?

Conformity with technology trends: Are there any general or legislative

required changes of technology noticeable in the market?


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Market reach: Which markets can be reached with the product?

Sustainability of the technical solution: Are the solutions long-term or

short-term solutions for the market?

Need for the technical solution: How strong is the pressure to find a

solution?

Competitive environment: How big is the competition?

Speed of innovation: How high can the (re-) action speed of the company

be rated?

The search for useful indicators and assessment criteria to evaluate and select

ideas is a very complex and complicated topic. Although there is a high

agreement of the importance of such a selection, our interviewed experts cannot

provide a satisfying solution. They also have problems with the evaluation of

ideas, due to missing assessment criteria and transparency of decision-making.

Success Factors of Ideation Processes

The identification of success factors of ideation processes represents our main

focus within the expert interviews. In order to find factors which we can map to

our reference process model of ideation, we first asked the interviewees the

open-ended question: “According to your experience and/or considerations,

what are key success factors of an ideation process?” This should encourage the

interview partners to talk freely and to reveal more information voluntarily. In

the second step, we confronted them with our list of possible aspects derived

from the literature review and presented in Chapter 7.1.3.

The first question and answer session with our interviewees showed very

clearly that top management commitment has a very high rank amongst the

critical success factors of ideation processes. Without exception, all the

interviewed experts agreed to the fact that top management commitment is

indispensable to enforce innovation activities. Two experts declared that they

had seen several ideas fail due to lack of a visible commitment of top

management. Without the top management commitment, the resources for

ideation activities in terms of time and budget will not be granted.

Another very important success factor identified in particular at German

automotive OEMs is the fact that ideation needs to focus. A well-defined

strategic orientation has to be visible for everyone who is involved in ideation.

A cohesive strategy has to describe the future vision for the company’s

products and services. That strategy needs to state clearly the long-term

perspective that all participants in the ideation process are in line with this

future focus. This strategy-oriented approach needs open lines of

communication that are regularly and consistently managed. Additionally, it is

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important that market changes and the evolution of the company’s new

products make it necessary to revise the strategy regularly. This flexible

modification of strategy must not be underestimated. Otherwise there is the

threat of losing differentiation attributes with respect to the competition.

Creating and sustaining Unique Selling Propositions is a crucial objective of

the interviewed OEMs, in particular because of their global market presence.

Ideation needs a good prerequisite. This includes, from our interviewees’ points

of view, diligence work in form of analysis of the market situation, a

competitive environment, customer needs, technology trends, current and future

legislation, etc. OEM 1 sees in this preparation the prerequisite to target and

optimise idea generation.

All the involved interview partners agreed that a systematic and transparent

pursuit of ideas is needed. “Ideas may not disappear without a trace”, stated

OEM 1. This leads to the assumption that especially the generation of ideas

must involve a broad mass of employees and integrate external stakeholders as

well. OEM 3 pointed out: “Creativity evolves from Networks.”

However, networking and stakeholder integration needs clear structures

including roles, responsibilities, mandates, reporting lines, etc. Leveraging

interdisciplinary teams with strong leadership may influence the idea

generation positively. For OEM 4 this aspect seems to be a promising factor.

“Someone has to have the lead to pull ideas through”, added OEM 2. A clear

role allocation also leads to a successful ideation. These roles are: leaders of

ideation activities, promoter of ideas and mentors of idea promoters. “But it is

important”, Innovator 4 pointed out, “that a common mental model exists

between these roles and that they adhere to the same clear process model.”

Our interviews also revealed the fact that to facilitate creativity, it is a vital

success factor to balance between specific and well-defined problem solving

activities, in form of guided ideation, and giving the employees their freedom

of generating ideas without corporate specifications. This last point will enable

ideas out of the box but requires special budget.

To solve the problem of budget allocation during ideation, OEM 3 and

Innovator 6 see the need for a competition spirit among ideation teams/idea

contributors and their generated ideas. There has to be competition for the

budget, where only the best ideas receive the needed financial resources. This

demands for entrepreneurship, because only if the ideas contributors think like

entrepreneurs enforcing internal idea marketing, their ideas will obtain the

recognition they deserve.

The experts agreed on the importance of idea communication as a bidirectional

exchange:


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1. From the idea contributor: integrate ideas into a story to gain attention and

highlight customer value and marketing aspects, and

2. to the idea contributor: assure quick response times to idea submissions and

guarantee a systematic and transparent follow-up of ideas.

Regarding idea selection, the interviewed experts emphasised again the need

for practical indicators to monitor and select ideas. For OEM 1 and Innovator 6

a comprehensible decision-making is essential.

Asked about rewarding schemes as a success factor, the experts did not

prioritise this aspect very highly. In their understanding, it is crucial to motivate

employees, but not only by financial rewards. They stressed that rewards are

also about recognition and being able to do satisfying work that challenges the

mind and allows setting free their creativity.

Interfaces and Responsibilities

As already seen in our discussion with the experts about the success factors of

ideation, the most important interface is the top management. For the

interviewees, a regular involvement of top management is crucial for the

success.

However, it is also essential to identify all internally responsible persons and

bring them together in regular time intervals. Such exchange should be

leveraged by dedicated meetings where top management participates and makes

decisions.

Moreover, the experts highlight the fact that each ideation team needs a leader

who can act as the moderator and reporter. The personal communication and

the continuous flow of information and knowledge among different actors of

the whole ideation process is thus an essential element.

The challenge of these special part of the ideation process is to nominate the

appropriate experts from different fields for several parts of the entire ideation

process and define their specific responsibilities. Possible difficulties, maybe

due to personal reasons, have to be resolved to achieve an output-oriented and

targeted cooperation.

Additional Processes, Methods and Systems

Finally, we tried to identify additional processes, methods and systems that are

connected with an ideation process. In particular, we were interested in idea

generation tools—especially creativity techniques—that are useful for practical

execution.

Prior research by one member of our researcher team (see Chapter 4.4.2) was

focused on the usage well-established idea generation tools in automotive

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industry practice. We used this list of idea generation tools from his survey,

which is also based on a qualitative research approach based on expert

interviews, in our interview guideline (see Appendix).

Our interview partners confirmed that they were using several of these tools.

However, they stressed the fact that they used it very sporadically and only

when it is needed. So they are far from mastering these tools at their full scales.

The interviewees would appreciate regular lessons or seminars teaching them to

correctly use such tools.

In addition, Supplier 2 uses the problem-solving method TRIZ [FEY2005],

[CAV2001] and [CAV2009] as a helpful structure to come up with inventive

(and probably innovative) ideas. Also, they are following and working with

lead users [HIP1999] to generate leading edge ideas.

5.2.3 Recommendations for the Ideation Process Model

Globally speaking, these expert interviews validate and enrich our previous key

findings from literature review. Our discourse with experts in the fields of

ideation and innovation management helped us to identify best practices and to

derive success factors from them.

When we look at the multitude of identified success factors that we found in

our literature review and expert interviews, we can observe that a clustering of

the factors based on their frequencies is possible and helpful in the practice and

business context. With regard to our ideation reference process model we want

to group the success factors into prerequisite, generation, and selection aspects

of ideation. This summary of the success factors represents the fundamental

objectives of ideation and is a very good starting point for defining the stages of

our ideation reference process model.

5.3 Derivation of the Ideation Process Model

5.3.1 Key Success Factors of the Ideation Process Model

Our extensive literature review in the principle subject areas of innovation

management, fuzzy front-end research and NPD research, as well as our

examination of best practice examples from the automotive industry and other

worldwide recognised innovation leaders result in the identification of key

success factors for an effective ideation process. Within our previously

identified key aspects of ideation—i.e. prerequisite, generation and selection—


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we achieved a further clustering of the factors to simplify the targeted mapping

in the ideation reference process model (see Chapter 5.3.2).

Finally, we summarise our findings from literature review and expert

interviews under the following six main success factors, which are actionable

and promising for the creation of an ideation reference process model:

Success Factor No. 1 (S1): Ideation starts at the top management.

Top management call and clear top management commitment to ideation is

absolutely essential and must be clearly visible for all employees.

Success Factor No. 2 (S2): Ideation needs a clearly defined focus.

Systematic analysis of the company’s total situation and environment for

the identification of areas of action increases the effectiveness during the

generation and selection of ideas.

Success Factor No. 3 (S3): Ideation happens in networks.

Targeted integration of internal and external stakeholders prevents “me-

too-innovations” and increases the innovation potential.

Success Factor No. 4 (S4): Ideation demands creativity.

The promotion of creativity and its integration in corporate processes

enhances the quality and quantity of ideas.

Success Factor No. 5 (S5): Ideation needs entrepreneurship.

Competition between ideas and their marketing in the company raises the

level of maturity and the quality of ideas.

Success Factor No. 6 (S6): Ideation requires organisational orientation.

Target–oriented decision-making processes with transparent evaluation

criteria enable the communication and conversion of ideas.

All the above listed success factors contribute to creating and reinforcing an

organisational culture of Open Innovation, facilitating the integration of

numerous stakeholders in the ideation process.

Especially in business sectors where the Closed Innovation paradigm dominates

R&D processes including ideation, a change in mindset toward Open

Innovation represents an essential breakthrough to increase innovative power

[ILI2010a].

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5.3.2 Global Structure of the Ideation Reference Process Model

Our main objective for the creation of the ideation reference process model was

to achieve a clear and simple mapping of the identified six key factors to stages

and gates of the ideation process, in a way that each of these elements can also

be implemented in any specific organisation. The advantage of leaving the

model broad is that this allows any company to tune their existing ideation

processes to the most effective elements instead of blindly copying the whole

ideation reference process model.

For this purpose, we have created the process based on the three fundamental

aspects of ideation, which we derived from our research findings (see Chapter

5.2.3) [NEU2012]:

1. Prerequisite covers all the activities expected from top management level

to set the right frame for the whole ideation process, like internal and

external analysis, definition of business unit innovation strategy,

commitment of top level management visible for all employees, agreement

on the ideation targets and priorities and commitment to available

resources.

2. Generation is the active execution phase. Here all the ideation activities are

fully devoted to facilitate the generation of ideas to the maximum. These

activities include the creation of ideas in networks of internal and external

actors, usage of creativity techniques out of the company-specific ideation

tool box, guided ideation and the speciality of “Wild Card Ideation”.

3. Selection consists the idea assessment, idea communication and the transfer

of ideas to the subsequent NPD. This stage is dedicated to find and

campaign the best ideas for the upcoming development process.

These three main elements correspond to the stages of our ideation reference

model. Each phase has its specific ideation activities, which also occur from

our research of best practices and represent in their core also success factors

that have to be implemented in order to fulfil the related gate requirements and

to pass to the next stage. Taking all this into account during the creation of the

process, we have finally designed the ideation reference process model as

shown in Figure 5-2.


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Prerequisite Generation SelectionImpulse

Transfer

to other

processStart of

innovation

Prerequisite

fulfilled

Generation

finished

Ideas

selected

Deferred Ideas with future potential

1. Internal

analysis

2. External

analysis

3. Innovation

strategy

4. Top

management

commitment

5. Target

agreement

6. Resource

commitment

1. Stakeholder

management

2. Network

management

3. Partner

management

4. Ideation tool

box

5. Guided

ideation

6. Wild card

ideation

1. Idea

communication

2. Idea

assessment

3. Idea transfer

Opportunity Idea

Figure 5-2: Ideation Reference Process Model

Table 5-5 explains our mapping and represents an overview of all the three

phases including the activities which have to be complete in each step, as well

as the corresponding key success factors that they address.

Ideation Process Phase Ideation Activities Success Factors

Prerequisite

Internal Analysis

S1 and S2

External Analysis

Innovation Strategies

Top Management Commitment

Target Agreement

Resource Commitment

Generation

Stakeholder Management

S3 and S4

Network Management

Partner Management

Ideation Tool Box

Guided Ideation

Wild Card Ideation

Selection

Idea Communication

S5 and S6 Idea Assessment

Idea Transfer

Table 5-5: Mapping of the Key Success Factors with the Phases of the


It is very important that this framework is implemented in a way that it allows

for the flexibility required to leverage the intrinsic dynamics of idea generation,

i.e., ideas coming up at any stage of this process must be handled efficiently.

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Also, ideas that are not selected have to be maintained in a way that they can

participate in future selection phases: ideas not relevant today may become

relevant tomorrow [NEU2012]. These assumptions correspond to the findings

documented in Chapter 5.1.2, where the iterative character of processes is

emphasised by authors like e.g. Koen et al. [KOE2001], [KOE2002].

In the following chapters we will describe each of these phases and their

associated activities, for which our model does not seek to impose neither a

particular timely order nor a prioritisation, as these will depend on the specific

corporate context.

5.4 The Prerequisite Phase

The prerequisite phase includes all the effort that is invested in the initial part

of the ideation process. For the reference process model, this will include

everything from the first external and internal analysis through to the top

management commitment. It will also include the definition of business unit

innovation strategies and the target agreement. Very important is also the

commitment to the resources needed to realise the upcoming innovations.

The prerequisite phase is a fundamental element because it mirrors the

innovation strategy as well as the culture and organisation of a company. It

helps to set the framework for a commonly shared mental model [ALB2011]

and [ALB2012] amongst the actors of the ideation process. Essentially, the

prerequisite phase is about preparing the following process phases and priming

the company for the necessary next steps of inspiration and creativity.

Creativity has to be fed, and without any input, no output can be expected

[MAH2011].

Most of these prerequisites needed to pass on to idea generation should be

available to a large extend from strategic activities that are already carried out

as part of existing processes, and are therefore not to be seen as additional

charge imposed by the new ideation process [NEU2012].

5.4.1 Internal and External Analysis

The whole ideation process starts with an impulse. Because this process is

embedded in an interactive organisational environment, these impulses can

come from the internal or external environment. According to the influencing

factors defined by Koen et al., these impulses can be based on [KOE2002]:

the corporation’s organisational capabilities,

customer and competitor influences,


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the outside world’s influences, and

the depth and strength of enabling sciences and technology.

To be aware of possible opportunities the internal and external analysis of these

influencing factors is vital [KOE2002]. Already in the year 1964 Cochran and

Thompson saw the need for sufficient market analysis to guarantee the new

products’ success [COC1964]. Subsequent studies have proven this assumption

[ROT1974], [COO1983], [DWY1991a], [DWY1991b] [BAR1995],

[CAL1997], [PAR1994], [LYN1998a]. Therefore this initial screening

activities mark the start of the prerequisite phase of the ideation process.

The internal analysis has to focus on the check of core competencies and

capabilities first. This is crucial, because these organisational core

competencies and capabilities determine the following identification and

analysis of internal impulses as well as the effort on using external

opportunities [KOE2002]. This internal analysis has to support the

identification of the company’s strengths and weaknesses and the related

current resource situation.

The definition of the current market situation is the core task of the external

analysis and the information of the market must be observed and explored for

usable ideas. The identification of customer requirements helps to formulate

customer needs and consequently starting points for the idea generation. Also

the analyses of competitors’ approaches may inspire and support changing

previous manners in the company to solve problems. The analysis of the outside

world includes government policy, environmental regulations, and laws

concerning patents. Socioeconomic trends affect the ideation process as well

[KOE2002].

The stimulus for new ideas based on internal and external research with the aim

to commercialise new know-how is called technology push [BRE2009]. The

identification of new enabling technology fields, which can be repeatedly used

in a product or service, is an important issue within the ideation process

[KOE2002].

Highly technology-driven sectors like automotive, are obliged to monitor and

actively influence technologies that decide about market success. Therefore the

stakeholders responsible for ideation have to analyse technologies with respect

to their further implementation, new arising (substituting) technologies have to

be identified in time, and assessed for their commercialisation and threat

potential. This also implies the need for observing—and probably even

participating in—fundamental research.

In the course of this analysis the extraction of knowledge is essential. Therefore

the prerequisite phase has to deal with the procurement, storage and utilisation

of new technological knowledge, similar to the discipline of technology

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management [BRO1999]. Only through the identification of gaps in the current

product portfolio and—based on these findings—clearly communicated priority

fields of action, it is possible find new ideas to protect the company’s

competitiveness [COO1999].

5.4.2 Innovation Strategy

Ideation needs a clearly defined focus. This was one of the major findings from

our expert interviews. Griffin and Page support the conclusion that the presence

of a clear strategy has a positive influence on the success of new products

[GRI1997]. Therefore the definition of the company’s innovation focus that is

aligned with the overall company’s core mission and values is inevitable and a

major part of the House of Innovation [DIE2006], [ENG2010], presented

earlier in Chapter 2.3. This strategic focus helps reduce cost and time effort

during the creation and realisation of ideas [MEY1997].

Innovation strategy has a leading and controlling function and leverages the

effectiveness of the ideation process [CLA2012]. The core of an innovation

strategy is a set of innovation guidelines and innovation search fields. These

innovation guidelines and innovation search fields provide a framework for the

ideation process concerning the following key points [CLA2012]:

They ensure that all innovation activities are aligned with the overall

corporate strategy and make a supportive contribution to it.

They channel and focus the idea generation. Thus, for example, innovation

search fields can be transformed directly into tasks of an ideation

workshop.

They can be used as assessment criteria for ideas, especially in the idea

selection gate.

They help design products or services aligned with the market needs.

In the context of innovation strategy, a company’s core competencies play a

major role. Prahalad and Hamel [PRA1990] argue that in order for companies

to perform successfully in the long run, they have to stick to a limited set of

distinctive technological capabilities in which they can obtain specialisation

and synergistic economies, and through which they would be able to deliver an

ongoing flow of innovations to multiple product markets. The paper had a

powerful impact on corporate mangers’ general conception of what constituted

the foundation for sustainable competitive advantage in large technology-

intensive companies.


115

Apart from these internal factors of a company, innovation strategies have to

take into account external factors as well [CON2001]. These external factors

are [PEA2011]:

Remote factors are beyond the borders of a company like economic,

regulatory, social, political and ecological variables.

Industry factors influence the company but the latter has only limited

control on these variables, e.g. the competition and the supply chain.

Company factors are operational forces of a business which can be most

influenced by a company such as customers, suppliers, competitive position

and creditors.

Therefore, any innovative activity has to take into consideration the underlying

interdependencies as well as the company’s competitive strategy. Central factor

of competitive strategy is the choice of the market position and its realisation

[POR1980]. A detailed description of the creation of an innovation strategy

including practicable approaches and methods can be found in the publication

of Clausen et al. [CLA2012].

5.4.3 Top Management Commitment

Even the best ideas need support and commitment from the management board.

All the interviewed external experts agreed on this. Our interviews with internal

experts at KSPG also revealed that this commitment is essential to push the

development of new products. One of our internal experts stated: “Based on my

experiences, it might be important that the top management provides a

statement regarding the most important innovative topics, which they really

want to be realised.” Top management commitment can be seen as the

prerequisite for establishing the basic conditions for innovative activities to be

carried out and for employees to understand their responsibility and to be

encouraged to think beyond the status quo.

Regular innovation board meetings helps to implement the objective of top

management commitment, as top management is supposed to commit to

innovation strategy and innovation priorities there. Ideation calls and timelines

are directly derived from these outcomes, and have to be communicated in the

entire organisation.

Too often good ideas are not pursued because there are no influential promoters

in the company. Finding promoters having the balanced combination of power

and knowledge is also a prerequisite for the success of an idea [GAS2011].

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116

5.4.4 Target Agreement and Resource Commitment

During the previously mentioned innovation board meetings it is also possible

to find an agreement on the targets of the whole ideation process. To guarantee

the success of the ideation process it is necessary to define ideation targets and

associated assessment criteria and key performance indicators to measure the

results in relation to the initially declared objectives.

The gates of the ideation process have to be defined in a way that they include

results that are necessary for the business decision “Let’s start the next phase of

the process – not more, not less.” [GAS2011]. This transparent evaluation

approach will help to initiate some sort of ideation contest, as idea contributors

are aware of the fact that only those ideas will be implemented which pass all

gates by fulfilling all previously requirements and evaluation criteria.

The prerequisite phase also has to assure that fundamental resources are

available for the subsequent idea generation phase. This is crucial, because

effective resource management helps increase the number of ideation initiatives

and improve the probability of stimulating idea [LAW2001]. A solid

prerequisite has to enable a connected and inspiring environment for ideation.

5.5 The Generation Phase

The major goal of the generation phase is to create as many ideas as possible.

Essential activities to be carried out during this execution are the following:

stakeholder management,

expert network management,

partner management,

selection and deployment of ideation tools and methods, like e.g. guided

ideation, and

creation of a spirit of challenge and competition (wild card ideation).

Throughout the ideation generation phase there has to be good balance between

freedom for creativity and relevance to the clearly communicated innovation

targets, as well as the defined indicators and assessment criteria. Only this will

assure that ideas will mature and propagate to the final selection phase

[NEU2012].


117

5.5.1 Management of Stakeholders, Networks and Partners

Where do new ideas come from? Which internal and external sources are

especially suitable for ideation in general? – In many organisations, innovation

management is an isolated unit lacking the integration of all important internal

and external stakeholders in the early phase of the innovation process.

Therefore the implementation of a company-wide ideation management

function, which organises the comprehensive and profound interactions with

other corporate division members and the business environment, is the first

essential step to lever the generation of ideas. The integration of stakeholders,

the establishment of ideation networks and the opening of the ideation process

to partners will also positively influence the following phase of the ideation

process, idea selection (see Chapter 3.3).

The management of networks comprises activities such as the establishment of

ideation networks, non-strategic know-how sharing and integration, as well as

structuring external know-how. By its very definition, Open Innovation leads to

networks of people, companies, and other different kinds of organisations.

Several different kinds of initiatives are typical in such networks, such as:

contracting specialists,

Joint Ventures with other companies,

co-developing products with suppliers,

subcontracting services,

licensing technology,

alliances with universities and research institutes,

participating in broad networks to coordinate innovation,

involving existing and future customers in idea and feedback networks,

trend identification from semantic analysis of social and knowledge

networks.

The enrichment of the linear stage-gate model with aspects of interactions

resulting in the creation of knowledge and learning will improve innovation

power.

Our expert interviews help us identify internal and external stakeholders, which

have relevance for the automotive industry in particular (see Chapter 7.2.2).

These new findings in combination with our prior research [NEU2011d] enable

us to present a list of relevant stakeholders for the automotive industry sector

concerning ideation. Figure 5-3 depicts the most promising stakeholder groups

in association with the ideation process model.

Chapter 5

118

External

Stakeholders

Internal

Stakeholders

Includes: HR, Legal

Affairs, Logistics,

Controlling, Finance,

Accounting, IT

Includes: R&D, Sales,

Purchasing, Quality,

Manufacturing

IDEATION

PROCESS

Suppliers

Govern-

ment

Society

Science

Com-

petitors

Customers

Execu-

tive /

Manage-

mentExpert

Depart-

ments

After-Sales

Cross-

functional

Teams

External

Employees

Adminis-

tration

Figure 5-3: Integration of Stakeholders in the Ideation Process

Based on this focus on crucial stakeholders, we want to continue our

stakeholder analysis more deeply according to our assumptions in Chapter

2.4.2, first looking at internal stakeholders, then to external stakeholders.

When it comes to product innovation, the most successful companies are those

whose organisational structures foster the development of knowledge through

formal research and development processes and the development of knowledge

based on experience, practice, and interaction between employees, clients, and

suppliers [JEN2007]. Jensen et al. [JEN2007] found that the organisational

configuration of companies that develop knowledge based on practical

experience and interactions among employees present the following

characteristics:

existence of interdisciplinary workgroups;

role integration around specialties and processes, rather than departments;

flexible boundaries between departments;

cooperation with clients.

Thus, the establishment of an organisational framework which facilitates the

involvement of all internal stakeholders upfront in the generation stage but

additionally in all ideation process stages according to their contributions, has

to take into account

the particular interests and value understandings of each stakeholder group,

their desired roles within the organisation in the ideation process,


119

their particular involvements, as well

as methods and tools that are adapted to and support their involvement.

Based on our previous considerations [NEU2011d] we revised the internal

stakeholder analysis for all the groups shown in Figure 5-3. The results are

summarised in Table 5-6.

Internal

Stakeholder

Group

Interests/

Values Roles Involvement

Methods/

Tools

Executive Strategic

objectives

Business

success

Leadership

Corporate

culture

Decision-making

Providing

resources

Definition of core

competencies

Important

involvement in

prerequisite phase

Operational direction

Decision-

making body

Technology

Roadmap

Scenario

techniques

Management Strategic and

operational

objectives

Commercial

success

Methodical

thinking

Supporting the idea

generation

Evaluation,

selection and

controlling of ideas

Assessment of idea

performance

Coordination

Involvement in idea

generation and idea

selection phase

Motivation of

employees

Assignment of key

roles

Implementation of

strategic objectives

Review

meetings

Market

analyses

Information

exchange

Knowledge

management

Expert

Departments

(includes R&D,

sales, purchasing,

quality,

manufacturing)

Operational

and functional

objectives

Functional and

technical

know-how

Customer

focus

Market

knowledge

Organisational

know-how

Networking

Idea contributors

Evaluation of ideas

as experts

Collection of

information and

ideas from external

stakeholders, like

customer or

supplier

Implementation of

ideas

Contributing

customer needs,

competitor

situation or

supplier insights

Door opener

Involvement in all

innovation process

phases

Realisation of ideas

Commercialisation of

ideas

Idea generation

activities and

processes

Customer or

supplier

meetings,

workshops and

seminars

Customer

relationship

management

systems

Inventions

After-Sales Face-to-face

with end users

Product

knowledge

Idea contributors

Under-standing

product

specification

End-user insights

Involvement in idea

generation phase

Idea generation

activities and

processes

Cross-functional

Teams

Problem focus

Interdiscipli-

nary team-

work

Idea contributors

Evaluation of ideas

as experts

Special task forces

Involvement in idea

generation phase

Creative

techniques

Inventor circles

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120

External

Employees

Project

objectives

Task focus

Output

oriented

Idea contributors

Stimulus from

outside

Outside view

Involvement in idea

generation phase

Temporary restricted

relationship

Idea generation

activities and

processes

Consulting

meetings

Administration

(includes: HR,

Legal Affairs,

Logistics,

Controlling,

Finance,

Accounting, IT)

Operational

and functional

objectives

Task-related

abilities

Evaluation of ideas

as experts

Implementation of

ideas

Acceptance

support

Involvement in all

innovation process

phases

Realisation of

innovations

Idea generation

activities and

processes

Table 5-6: Overview of Internal Stakeholders’ Participation in the Ideation

Process

To support new product development and to accomplish the goal of successful

ideas, the ideation process has to involve external stakeholders. Several

industries, among which the automotive industry, are only at the transition from

classical so-called “closed” innovation organisations to open innovation

[ILI2010a]. The multitude and variety of external stakeholder groups

potentially involved in this movement is extremely large, very much driven and

supported by increasingly powerful and pervasive networking facilities.

According to the external stakeholder groups shown in Figure 5-3, we

attempted to identify some key characteristics of involvement in the ideation

process. Table 5-7 shows the findings of the external stakeholder analysis.

External

Stakeholder

Group

Interests/

Values Role Involvement

Methods/

Tools

Customers Fulfilment of

needs

Additional

benefits

Low price,

high value

Idea contributors

Defines

development-

related functional

requirements and

contract

specifications

Providing financial

resources

Very important

involvement in

all ideation

phases

Key idea

contributors

Acceptance of

innovations

Lead user innovation

[HIP1999] and

[THO2002]

Competitors Strategic

objectives like

Pioneer, Fast

Follower or

“Me-Too”

Commercial

success

Defending and

improvement

of own market

Motivation for

development

changes and

innovations

Realignment of

strategic objectives

Driver for strategic

alliances

Involvement in

all innovation

process phases

Influence of

overall

innovation

strategy

Compete with

best-in-class to

leverage

Direct talks

Competitive intelligence

[MIC2006b]

Joint Ventures


121

position learning and

excellence

Science Basic research

Methodical

thinking

Expert know-

how

Conceptual

groundwork

Idea contributor

Evaluation of ideas

as an expert

Trend prediction

Important

involvement in

idea generation

and idea

selection phase

Supporting

innovation

plans

Testing of

innovations

Knowledge management

Sponsoring of university

chairs

Master and PhD thesis

projects

Conferences

Scanning new technology

publications

Science-industry

cooperation

Society Socio-cultural

environment

Definition of

visions and

values

Networking

Lobbying

Visionaries

Indicator for

market trends

Contributing

overall needs and

environ-mental

insights

Evaluation of ideas

as an expert

Involvement in

all ideation

process phases

Promotion of

ideas

Influence of

the

sustainability

of innovations

Knowledge mining

techniques [ASA2008]

Working groups

Contact with opinion

leaders and reference

groups

Publications from industry

associations

Monitoring media,

especially internet

research or patent research

Government Prosperous

economy

Legal-political

framework

Regulatory

authority

Administration

Governs

development-

related regulatory

requirements

Funding innovation

projects

Involvement in

all ideation

process phases

Regulate and

control

innovations

Scanning new technology

regulations

Attendance in national

and international fund

programs for innovations

Suppliers

of physical

goods or

informa-

tion (like

consul-

tants or

research

firms)

Long-term

relationship

and

cooperation

Business

success

Information

exchange

Expert know-

how in their

field of

activity

Idea contributors

Determine the

realisation of

innovation through

materials,

equipment etc.

Consulting

Problem solver

during realisation

Involvement in

all ideation

phases

Realisation of

ideas

Meetings and direct talks

Contract negotiations

Usage of provided

information services

Table 5-7: Overview of External Stakeholders’ Participation in the Ideation

Process

The integration of internal and external stakeholders and the organisation of

networks and partnerships is a very essential part of our ideation process model.

This demands at the same time a very good understanding of the stakeholders.

The systematic stakeholder analysis as presented in the previous explanations

can help to manage stakeholders, networks and partnerships. It is applicable to

several different industrial organisations as it is based on the social principles

identified in [MER1997] and evoked in Chapter 2.4.2 for each stakeholder

group.

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5.5.2 Ideation Tool Box

The method, tools and techniques that a company uses to generate ideas are the

essence of this element of the ideation process. For a formal structured ideation

approach, creativity tools and techniques (e.g. brainstorming, six thinking hats,

etc.) as well as problem solving techniques (e.g. TRIZ, patent mapping, etc.)

may be utilised. Alternatively, informal opportunity identification activities

may occur which include ad hoc sessions, discussions during coffee breaks,

individual insights, or edicts from senior management. Opportunity

Identification in many cases precedes active idea generation, but may also be an

enabling step to link an unanticipated notion to a business or marketplace need

that was not previously identified [VER2007a].

The genesis of ideas cannot be left to chance during a structured ideation

process. Thus, it is important to identify the most promising ideation activities

that can stimulate creativity actively. Related to this topic, an enormous amount

of publications exists that deals with the subject of techniques, activities, and

processes for generating ideas. Glassman gives a very profound overview over

these existing methods and tools [GLA2009]. An outline of many ideation

methods can also be found in the book from Cooper and Edgett [COO2007b].

A very recent study—and a very insightful publication for our purpose—was

published by Cooper and Edgett [COO2008], who tried to find an answer to the

question: “Ideation for Product Innovation: What are the best methods?” Their

study looked at 18 different ideation methods with the objective to determine

how extensively each ideation method is used (the popularity of the method) as

well as to gauge management’s perception of the effectiveness of the method in

generating excellent, high-value new product ideas. A total of 160 companies

took part in the study conducted in 2007 [COO2008].

Figure 5-4 presents the popularity and effectiveness of each of the 18 methods

in a magic ideation quadrant diagram. The popularity is measured by the

percentage of firms that extensively use each method (usage was captured on a

0-10 scale; “extensive users” are those that checked the top third of this 10-

point usage scale). Rated effectiveness of each method is presented as a 0-10

scale, but only for users of that method. Ideation methods that are both popular

and effective are in the upper right quadrant, approaches that are not too

popular and rated ineffective are in the lower left quadrant [COO2008].


123

Percent Extensively Using

Ra

ted

Eff

ec

tive

ne

ss (

0-1

0)

Strong

Poor

7

6.5

6

5.5

5

4.5

4

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40%

Popular & Effective

Not Too Popular &

Rated Ineffective

Open Innovation

Voice-of-Customer

Other Methods

Internal idea

capture system

Patent mining

Partners & vendors

Disruptive technologies

Peripheral vision

Customer visit teams

Focus groups

Lead user

analysis

Ethnography

Customer helps design product

Customer advisory board

Customer brainstorming

Community of enthusiasts

External product designs

Form start-ups

External idea contest

External scientific communityExternal

submission of ideas

Figure 5-4: The Magic Ideation Quadrant Diagram [COO2008]

The magic ideation quadrant diagram in Figure 5-4 gives a good overview of

the popularity and effectiveness of voice-of-customer methods, open innovation

approaches and other ideation methods, like peripheral vision, disruptive

technologies, patent mapping and internal idea capture (this last method is

equal to the corporate suggestion system explained in Chapter 3.1.1). Those in

the desirable upper right quadrant are highly recommended to take a close look

at. The other approaches in the upper left quadrant are definitely recommended.

The other methods found in the lower half of the magic ideation quadrant

diagram are lower-rated—this especially applies to the Open Innovation

approaches—but have to be considered if the method might fit in the

company’s special situation, market or industry. So, from a small sub-set of

users the Open Innovation methods received positive comments [COO2008].

The special thing about the ideation tool box is that it is not a fixed set of

ideation activities. It can be adapted to the company-related specifics. The

important aspect is the selection of tools, where the magic ideation quadrant

diagram by Cooper and Edgett can be very helpful. The tool selection must also

take into account that the techniques have to be easy to be used in practice and

employees have to get easily familiar with them.

Fact sheets explaining key issues concerning the individual methods can help

deploy such tools in ideation meetings. KSPG already formulated these fact

sheets and they can be found in the Appendix of this work. These fact sheets

Chapter 5

124

can be distributed to the participants before an ideation meeting so that they get

a basic understanding. Training sessions help exploit the tools’ full potential.

Moreover, this tool box has a flexible design, which means that it is desired that

it evolves over the time by the inclusion of new effective tools and the

elimination of ineffective ones. During the generation of new ideas it is also

possible to employ several tools in parallel. These tools can be tied together to

a set of activities which help produce ideas.

5.5.3 Guided Ideation

Guided ideation represents a management approach to creativity based

performance, which highlights the fact that successful ideation requires an

orchestrated interaction between management (control), expertise (analysis)

and creativity (insight). The core principle of guided ideation is to drive

ideation through organised and engineered idea campaigns [HEM2009].

The following aspects should be part of the guided ideation approach

[HEM2009]:

Develop a management approach to organisational slack, intrinsic

motivation and employee engagement from the perspective of ideation

performance.

Designate organisational roles: ideation champion(s), idea campaign

manager(s), idea champion(s) and idea reviewer(s).

Clearly define problems, challenges and desired outcomes.

Segment and target potential contributors and actively solicit contributions

through individual invitations to submit or review ideas from different

perspectives.

Communicate with idea contributors and provide timely feedback and

updates.

Offer real incentives for engagement.

Conduct internal ideation workshop sessions to increase reach and

stimulate contributions.

Make it easy to submit and share ideas.

The guided ideation can be supported by an external partner, e.g. by a

consultant who accompanies the generation of ideas effectively. An example of

guided ideation is that a company calls a contest between individual research

institutes, which compete against each other for the best idea proposals.


125

5.5.4 Wild Card Ideation

More often than not, ideas come up very spontaneously, from external idea

contributors, or are as immediate reactions to developments from competitors.

The challenge for the process is to also integrate these ideas, regardless which

stage or gate the ideation process is currently passing through.

If the ideation process is completed and the budget is allocated, then it will take

a relatively long time until the next decision during the selection phase, where

ideas are admitted and evaluated. Here, valuable time is lost.

Through the wild card function, ideas can be directly submitted to the

responsible business unit of the ideation process, e.g. the innovation

management. This central department has to have a special budget for the

treatment such proposals.

Another case is when ideas are rejected because they just do not fit to the

strategic focus, but they have a certain potential for innovation (e.g. for a

business model innovation). Here, innovation management can decide

consciously for a so-called “submarine project”. This kind of project is a

research activity which is known of only a very restricted group of people and

which bypasses the regular budget [WIL2009].

5.6 The Selection Phase

The ability to pick the right ideas to invest in is a critically important task for

almost every company’s leadership team in order to maximize productivity

from development spending [COO2011]. The final element of the ideation

reference process model—the selection phase—meets this challenge. During

this phase, the idea communication, idea assessment, and the idea transfer to

the subsequent NPD process are the most important steps.

5.6.1 Idea Communication

Already in the year 1955 Peter Drucker stated that “any business enterprise has

two – and only these two – basic functions: marketing and innovation. They are

the entrepreneurial functions“ [DRU1955]. The determining elements of these

two basic functions of entrepreneurship are: communication and ideas, because

marketing requires communication and innovation needs ideas. This part of the

selection phase has to combine these two aspects. Therefore, several aspects

have to be considered: from idea marketing to the point of communication

culture, both internally and externally.

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126

Zhao [ZHA2005] explored the synergies between entrepreneurship and

innovation. She analysed the factors that foster an interaction between the two

by the use of the qualitative methods of six case studies of six entrepreneurial

and innovative organisations and in-depth interviews with senior managers.

Zhao has found that entrepreneurship and innovation are positively related to

each other. Both fields are complementary, and a combination of the two is

crucial to organisational success and sustainability. The organisational culture

and management style are key factors affecting the development of

entrepreneurial and innovation behaviour in organisations. An entrepreneur has

the skills to embody the ability to search for and identify innovative

opportunities and the proactive attitude to promote innovation through a

strategic vision [ZHA2005].

A major task of the idea communication phase is the promotion of ideas to

increase general awareness. Encouraged through the guided ideation approach

(see Chapter 5.5.3), the growing spirit of competition forces them to promote

their ideas. This can be achieved by integrating ideas into a (success) story to

gain attention, and by highlighting customer value and marketing aspects.

Because everyone wants to win the budget, the communication about the ideas

becomes more open.

Generally, an open communication and a free flow of information within the

company and its external networks are essential to generate ideas and achieve

innovative outcomes. Communication facilitates knowledge sharing by

combining the wide variety of experiences, opening dialogue, building on

others ideas and exploring issues relevant to innovation. Innovative companies

reward cross-functional, cross-hierarchical, cross-cultural and cross-

technological exchange of information and knowledge [LAW2001]. Openness

within the company’s organisation encourages people to be creative together

[MIL2011].

To accomplish openness, there have to be clear communication paths between

the numerous actors within the ideation process across hierarchies, functions

and departments, making structures transparent. Part of this is that idea

contributors know their first contact person to submit and discuss an idea. Clear

rules describing the superior’s involvement have to be specified. Defined

communication rules and formal mechanisms are also necessary to protect

intellectual property and prevent the theft of ideas by third parties in external

cooperation.

In this context, every communication path has to be bi-directional, allowing for

feedback loops. Once an idea is submitted, idea contributors must get

immediate feedback about the further proceeding, and subsequently have to be

regularly informed about the current status. Roles and tools supporting the

communication have to be defined and introduced: the innovation manager or


127

the direct superior could be the contact person, and an IT-based solution such

as an idea database could be a supporting tool.

Open communication will help increase transparency among employees and

towards the company’s governance, creating a climate that is favourable for

mutual open exchange of creative and innovative thoughts and for better

understanding the way decision makers treat them.

5.6.2 Idea Assessment

Building funnels, no tunnels – this has been one of Cooper’s major doctrines

for decades [COO1999], [COO2011]. It is essential to find a working approach

within this ideation process phase that helps assess and prioritise all the created

ideas and solutions from the previous idea generation stage.

However, many firms do not use any systematic and analytical evaluation

models recommended in literature [BRE2001]. The reasons for the relatively

scarce deployment of evaluation models can be seen in a missing fit of the

evaluation models to the companies’ contingencies. This means that available

decision models would need a fundamental adaptation and fine-tuning in order

to reflect the characteristics of a particular firm.

The top management has to make the final go or no-go decision, based on an

upfront pre-selection carried out by an assessment body, the so-called “steering

committee”, acting as the interface between the top management and the idea

contributors and implementing the open communication culture described in

Chapter 5.2.2.

In regular review meetings, this body has to make a strategic screening to

identify the best ideas for the subsequent NPD process with respect to the

following most important decision points [HAU2011]:

Strategic fit: Does this idea fit in the long-term product and/or market

concept?

Priority: Which objective is the most important according to a first

estimation?

Feasibility: Based on a first assessment, are the financial and human

capacities of the company sufficient enough to start a NPD project based on

this idea?

Cooperation Decision: Should the idea be traced in cooperation with an

external partner, and if yes, who? Or, if networking already generates it,

has this cooperation reached its goals or not?

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128

Recruitment Decision: How to compose the project team working on the

innovation in the subsequent NPD process? Who are the team and project

leaders?

Responsibility System: Which member of the top management takes over

the “sponsorship” for the NPD project?

Decision on the organisation of the project: Which form of organisation is

chosen for the project?

Release Resources: Which further resources should be provided for the

innovation project?

The assessment of ideas requires the comparison of multiple ideas and their

contributions to the NPD process. Portfolio management can help identify the

specific position of an idea in a planned NPD project portfolio and its value for

the company [MÖH1988]. Cooper recommends implementing a portfolio

management in parallel to a stage-gate process [COO1999].

The steering committee has to include a portfolio review during their regular

meetings, to review the list of new ideas and assess the portfolio’s value. For

the review purpose a scoring model is more effective than a financial approach,

because financial data is very difficult to estimate in this early phase of

innovation. The steering committee has to look for a balance in the portfolio by

using visual tools like bubble diagrams [COO1999].

Our expert interviews (see Chapter 5.2.2) support these statements. They

confirmed that the importance of a strategic view on ideas and the necessity of

a steering committee. They also resulted in a draft of a portfolio bubble

diagram showing the strategy fit on the horizontal axis, and the future potential

on the vertical axis. The bubbles represent the evaluated ideas and the size of

the bubble corresponds to the NPD project costs. In our opinion, this is an

interesting recommendation for practical implementation.

Rewarding of selected and declined ideas and their contributors is an essential

element of establishing and sustaining the ideation culture. Investigating

common and potential rewarding schemes is beyond the scope of this thesis.

However, we insist on the fact that the mere recognition of ideation

performance by decision makers in the form of review meetings, presentations,

discussions, budget allocation, etc. foreseen by our ideation reference process,

will already significantly contribute to rewarding. As pointed out by Miller et

al. in [MIL2011], the recognition and acknowledgement by the top management

is sometimes higher valued by employees than monetary gratifications.


129

5.6.3 Idea Transfer

Idea transfer is directly linked to idea assessment and idea communication. If a

new idea is considered worth passing the money gate, the transfer to the

subsequent NPD process has to be assured by clear responsibilities to be

defined upfront by the steering committee. Thanks to the fact that our ideation

reference process implements success factors derived to a large part from NPD

success factors, this transition will be intrinsically smooth. The fundamental

basis of success of the NPD process has actually been laid in the upfront

ideation process.

5.7 Considerations for Practical Implementation

Top management support is the major lever for the operation of the ideation

reference process model. Through a systematic and regular starting point of the

idea generation process with top management involvement the foundation of

success of the new process is laid. A board meeting under the patronage of the

executive board in the beginning of the process will set the course for all the

following process steps. Here it is very important that the right decision makers

are identified and actively involved. During this first phase of commitment

building, the top management has to assure the following deliverables:

selection of relevant trends,

building future scenarios,

definition of relevant needs of action,

clear structures, roles and responsibilities,

transparency in every communication,

shared mental models,

commitment to sufficient “Freedom of Ideation” for employees,

idea competitions.

Another major conceptual component towards an efficient ideation process is

the personal communication and the continuous flow of information and

knowledge, which should be leveraged in interdisciplinary teams, composed of

internal and external stakeholders.

Finally, it is important that the implemented new ideation process does not

cause much additional work effort to the involved actors to avoid resistance

against the new procedure. To this aim, synergetic effects from existing

established processes in the company have to be maximised.

131

Part III:

Implementation of the

Ideation Process at KSPG

133

6 Derivation of the KSPG-specific Ideation Process

6.1 Introduction to the Case Study

In the further course of the thesis we want to discuss the implementation of an

ideation process compliant to our proposed reference process model in a

corporate environment. Thereby we follow the case study strategy as the

adequate research method. Yin states in his book “Case Study Research: Design

and Methods” that generally when

1. the research question focus on “how” questions and

2. the researcher has a main interest in a contemporary phenomenon within a

real-life context

the case study is the preferred research method [YIN2009].

The case study has been carried out at the German automotive supplier KSPG,

which will be introduced in Chapter 6.3. This single-case study can be

considered the appropriate design because of the rationale that the researched

company represents a typical case among other companies in the same industry

[YIN2009]. It helps us validate and adjust our reference process model.

The case study starts with a general description of the particular context of

innovation management in automotive industry followed by an extensive as-is

analysis of the current situation at KSPG. For this purpose, a corporate

situation analysis based on the evaluation of corporate documents was done.

Selected basic findings have already been published [NEU2011c].

In addition to the collection of secondary data, internal experts, mainly

managers from the department Research and Technology, have been

interviewed. These interviews basically followed the guideline for the external

expert interviews, albeit in a more informal and regular fashion in order to

guarantee the successful implementation of the process.

Chapter 6

134

6.2 Description of the Current Situation in the Automotive

Industry

6.2.1 Framework and Basic Conditions

Within the R&D- and innovation-driven environment of the automotive

industry the capacity of innovation and the performance of activities have

become major stakes for the success of companies. However, being innovative

is not the universal remedy for all existing economic problems of companies in

the automotive sector, proved by high flop rates of innovations [BRO1999]. For

example, only 20% of the R&D spending by both OEMs and automotive

suppliers represents profitable innovation investment [DAN2007].

In the last couple of years, the automotive industry has witnessed high levels of

strategic business activities undertaken by players worldwide, driven largely by

a tough operating environment that featured flat or declining demand trends,

rapid consolidation, rising raw material costs and severe pricing pressures.

Especially during the economic crisis with a significant slump in demand and

gyrating fuel prices, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) have become

aware of the need for fundamentally rethinking the way they do business, both

with end-customers and suppliers. Resources are limited, costs must be

contained, and yet customers still desire new, cutting-edge products.

OEMs have also identified product innovation as a key long-term measure to

enhance their market shares [ILI2009]. To this end, advanced technology and

product development initiatives are becoming critical issues on which all

automakers are focusing [ILI2009]. Subsequently, automakers have increased

their focus on R&D considerably over the years, which has enabled them to

develop cutting-edge products and technologies that ultimately satisfy the needs

of the end-user.

As a complementary development, the increasing focus on innovation has also

led to the shifting of product development responsibilities from the OEM level

to the component supplier level to achieve cost efficiency [DAN2007] and

[DAN2008b]. Since OEMs are under immense pressure to differentiate their

products through innovation, some of the top component suppliers have been

forced to take up engineering, designing, R&D and assembling responsibilities

that were previously the functions of OEMs [KUR2004]. Suppliers are

therefore also under pressure to strengthen their R&D investments in order to

develop breakthrough products and technologies, which would complement the

investments being made by OEMs in the R&D field [KUR2004]. To better

understand the requirements of OEMs, suppliers are working closely with the

latter in areas such as product design and development, manufacturing and

Derivation of the KSPG-specific Ideation Process

135

material selection, which are supported by computerised modelling and product

design software tools.

Instead of assembling individual components sourced from numerous suppliers,

OEMs worldwide now find it sensible to delegate the sourcing responsibility to

a few select suppliers that can provide them with fully designed systems,

modules and pre-assembled parts [MAT2004]. Thanks to rapidly evolving

consumer preferences and shortened product life-cycles, vendor consolidations

have emerged as the inevitable option, resulting in the global automotive

components industry experiencing several structural changes over the past few

years. The North American and Western European players no longer dominate

the component industry, as Asian and Eastern European players gain increasing

market share [GER2012a]. The latter provide superior technical expertise as

well as economies of scale, which helps the OEMs stay afloat in the fiercely

competitive market [KUR2004].

In the product development arena, electronics and information technology,

quality requirements, passenger safety, passenger comfort and compliance with

environmental regulations-related aspects have emerged as the prime areas of

focus. Among these, automotive electronics and mechatronical products, which

integrate mechanical, electronical and software components, have been

identified as the fastest-growing field and one with enormous growth potential

[GER2012b] and [STA2011a].

Due to the increasing ratio of software development in automotive vehicles

(more than 85% of the functionality in the modern motor vehicle are now

controlled by software), both the motor vehicle manufacturer and the supplier

need to take action to address these issues [SPI2012]. In 2003 the SOQRATES

[SOQ2012] initiative was set up supported by the Bavarian Software Offensive

and ISQI to launch Automotive SPICE® [SPI2012] in the German automotive

industry [MES2010a], [MES2010b]. Starting with 16 companies in the first

year, now approximately 24 leading German and Austrian companies act in the

Automotive SPICE® initiative. Automotive SPICE® is based on ISO 15504

and focuses on software capability assessments to provide significant business

benefits in use, but at the same time expose the scale of the potential problems,

particularly with suppliers of safety-critical embedded software system

components [SPI2012].

The Automotive SPICE® initiative developed a common framework for the

assessment of suppliers in the automotive industry [SPI2012]. The result is the

publication of the Automotive SPICE® Process Assessment Model together

with the associated Process Reference Model, which is used in major

automotive firms worldwide nowadays [MES2010b]. Automotive SPICE®

represents a major topic of today’s business and also an increasingly important

objective for future developments of the automotive sector.

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136

Environmental regulations are doing their part in driving the automotive

industry to innovate and develop new products and technologies. OEMs are

continuously urging component suppliers to develop products that comply with

environmental regulations worldwide, as well as products that are eco-friendly.

Increasing levels of vehicular emissions and stringent environmental

regulations have led to the development of several products such as catalytic

converters, exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) systems and air injection reactors,

among others. The emergence of emissions standards for all vehicles (such as

the European emissions standards) has resulted in innovations like hydrogen-

fuelled cars, electric vehicles and hybrid electric vehicles [GER2012b].

As a prominent trend, suppliers are busy forging strategic partnerships with

other companies and research agencies to come up with innovative products.

Suppliers are also working towards creating common platforms, through which

various business units in a company can share knowledge and technologies by

integrating various operations. This helps companies to speed up product

development, reduce costs and thereby deliver better value to customers

[STO2004].

In 2015, the global automotive suppliers and engineering firms will invest

approximately EUR 65 billion in R&D. This sum is far more than twice as

much as the OEMs’ budgets [DAN2008b]. Therefore automotive suppliers will

generate most of the engineering jobs in future – globally a total of about

250.000 jobs until 2015 [DAN2008b].

However, some of the major concerns with respect to product development

include adequate intellectual property protections, timely availability of funds,

delays in acceptance of new technologies and products and the rapidly

shortening product/technology life cycles that quickly render such new

products and technologies obsolete.

6.2.2 Innovation Management Trends and Requirements

The automotive industry is one of the most highly innovation-driven industries

[BIR2003]. This fact applies especially for the German automotive industry.

With a total of EUR 15,8 billion, the R&D expenditure undertaken by the

German automotive industry accounted for more than one-third of the total

R&D expenditure of the German industry in 2011 [GER2012b]. In order to

enhance its innovative power, the German automotive industry has stepped up

its research efforts continuously in the course of the past few years. For

example, the German automotive industry filed 10 patents per diem in 2010,

placing itself at the forefront of patent statistics [GER2011].

Innovation management in automotive sector (as well as in other technology-

driven sectors) is still very much focused on the generation, assessment, and


137

patenting of ideas for technical solutions to known problems. The number of

patents filed per year is thus typically used to assess a company’s innovation

power. However, as pointed out in Chapter 2.1, this indicator completely fails

to take into account the success of the implementation of those patents and

ideas on the market in terms of key factors of time (design, implementation,

market launch, lifetime, etc.), cost (development, production, total cost of

ownership, etc.), environmental impact (ecology, economy, society), and

numerous others.

Besides creating networked operational processes for the product development,

the actors in the automotive market are also shifting towards new forms of

innovation management [ILI2010b]. The systematic involvement of numerous

stakeholders of the product life cycle in the innovation management system has

huge potential [NEU2011d]. Ili et al. illustrate in their study that Open

Innovation is already appropriate for the automotive industry, and that it will be

a crucial factor in the next 10 years [ILI2010a]. For example, Johnson Controls

has recently launched a web-based solution for Open Innovation [JOH2012],

illustrated in Figure 6-1:

Figure 6-1: Open Innovation at Johnson Controls [JOH2012]

Via internet everyone is invited to submit technology ideas which are covered

by an existing patent or have a pending patent application. The Automotive

Experience team at Johnson Controls reviews these ideas. This review process

can take up to 3 months, and after the completion of this procedure, Johnson

Controls will provide the idea contributor with a status on his submission

Chapter 6

138

[JOH2012]. All in all, the process focuses on patents and seems very strict and

not very transparent.

However, one of the major concerns with respect to innovation management is

still the adequate organisation of the fuzzy front-end of innovations, especially

the development of a proper idea generation process [NEU2011a]. For

automotive suppliers this trend implies that increasingly they are supposed to

predict and influence trends and innovations themselves, rather than being

driven by OEMs.

The European car industry is highly dynamic and innovative. Its R&D

expenditures are well above average in Europe’s manufacturing sector. Among

the most important drivers of innovation are consumer demand (for comfort,

safety and fuel economy), international competition, and environmental

objectives and regulations.

Although the gains are very difficult to be quantified and generalised, the move

towards stakeholder-integration based innovation management processes and

organisations has become a must also for automotive suppliers. The automotive

industry, however, with its enormous development costs, lengthy product

cycles and fierce global competition, is a traditionally much closed industry,

with only very limited sharing of information and technology.

It is all the more important that innovation management in the field of

automotive industry must cope with the increasingly complex market

conditions. Due to its comprehensive and profound interactions with other

corporate divisions and the business environment the innovation management

has to be open for new models of creating and profiting from innovation

[ILI2010a], to find ways to ensure the generation of new ideas for radical

product innovations.

Especially knowledge plays a major role in today’s innovation management in

the automotive supplier sector. An empirical study by Barachini and Rankl

[BAR2008] leads to the assumption that knowledge management and

innovation management is important for the whole automotive supplier

industry. They discovered a strong positive correlation between knowledge

management and innovation, and recommend that knowledge and innovation

management should be regarded as key investments in the long run.

The automotive supplier industry prepares more and more the way for new

automotive technologies worldwide. Because of the automotive suppliers’ high

involvement and responsibility during the development activities of the OEMs,

most of the vehicle parts are engineered and manufactured by the suppliers

[DAN2008b] and [DAN2007]. The classical approach, to buy parts and

components from a variety of suppliers, will be increasingly replaced by

purchasing more complex, mostly pre-assembled systems (e.g. front-end


139

systems) from only a few suppliers (so-called single sourcing). Against the

background of globalisation and because of the ever-growing requirements of

the OEMs—like e.g. shorter development times and life cycles of the models or

the increasing relevance of electronics in vehicles—a further reinforced

consolidation process within the supplier industry will take place [MAT2004].

In the long run, it has to be assumed that almost the complete vehicle comes

from the plants of some few system suppliers and/or mega-suppliers, and the

branding OEMs assume only the overall project responsibility and

coordination. These relationships result in an interdependent manufacturer-

supplier-network [MAT2004] and [STA2011b]. Consequently, due to the fact

that the trend is moving away from components towards complex and self-

consistent systems, new supply chains of strategic partners are coming up

(Figure 6-2) [KUR2004].

Past:

Independent part suppliers in

direct competition

Present:

Procurement via strategic

suppliers

Future:

Networked companies within

the supply chain

Figure 6-2: Changing Supply Chains in Automotive Supplier Industry

[KUR2004]

Because the huge range of activities concerned with the development of system

solutions cannot be handled by only one supplier, a network of interconnected

supplier companies will act under the leadership of one global system integrator

[MAT2004]. This evolution from independent component suppliers in the past

towards defined and networked supply chains of system suppliers encourages

the creation of integrated teams. The intensity of interdependencies depends on

the fitting core competencies and product life cycle know-how of the partners

[KUR2004].

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140

These future trends lead to the assumptions that

the technology leadership in the automotive industry shifts more and more

to the suppliers [STO2004];

the changing structures in the supply chain require automotive suppliers to

enlarge their knowledge about relationships with their organisational

partners;

suppliers need to build up system competence, as they are assuming

responsibility for self-consistent system and subsystems rather than

individual parts and components;

as system providers, suppliers have to master the complete life cycle of the

systems they are developing.

These four factors demand from both automotive OEMs and suppliers

innovations on an organisational level. Current organisations do not support the

integration of experts over numerous different domains and hierarchical levels.

Luckily, however, there are some examples of modern organisations which are

completely focused on innovation by integration, and which confirm their

expected huge potential in terms of innovation power. Renault’s Techno-centre

in Guyancourt [BON1998] is one of the most outstanding stereotype examples

of its kind in the automotive sector.

The outsourcing of innovation activities to automotive suppliers has the

consequence that suppliers file independent patents in order to keep their own

innovations exclusive. Thus the large automotive suppliers focus their research

on the same areas as the OEMs, particularly to gain new knowledge and

strategically strong patents. Only very innovative suppliers succeed in the

development and maintenance of their patent portfolio to strengthen their

negotiation position versus the OEMs [GAS2007].

To understand innovation management in the automotive industry and based on

the findings from their study [DAN2007], the management consultancy Oliver

Wyman Automotive defined a system called “Innovation Strategy Framework”

(ISF) which takes the following success factors of innovation management into

account: a clear innovation strategy that is closely connected to the company’s

overall business model, the right team that has the culture to put the strategy to

work, an organisation that can effectively and efficiently steer the necessary

innovation process and an intelligent business case that enables innovations to

be turned into tangible profit. The ISF consists of four elements:

Innovation proposition: description of the major benefit and target segment

of the innovation and also the primary innovation guideline of the

company.


141

Organisation and culture: explanations of the innovation process, R&D

capacities and facilities structure.

Competence focus and collaboration: composition and evaluation of the

internal and external competencies and collaborations.

Business case: definition of the underlying revenue model for the

innovation and the protection of the innovation against exploitation from

competitors.

By using the ISF six innovator archetypes have been identified for OEMs and

six for suppliers. Each describes a typical ISF profile in which the different

elements fit together to form a coherent system. Many companies follow two or

more innovation strategies at the same time – suppliers with different product

ranges and OEMs with different brands. In addition, innovation archetypes are

not static role models, but evolve with time [DAN2007]. Table 6-1 shows

conclusively the archetypes of innovation management for automotive

suppliers.

Innovation

archetype

Innovation

proposition

Focus and

collaboration Business case

Radical

innovator

Replaces old systems or

establishes new ones

Specialized focus

Keeps know-how in-

house

Price premium

Strong IP

protection

Functional

enricher

Brings new functions to

the market

OEM and end customer

focus

Functional integration

focus

Keeps know-how in-

house

Price premium

Strong IP

protection

System

connector

Functional process or

product optimisation

End customer focus

Expansion into new

systems via coop

networks

Open interfaces

Price premium or

low-cost

Fairly weak IP

protection

Process

champion

Incremental process

innovation to serve

broader markets

Adapts to customers

Process focus

Open to coops

Low costs in

mature techs

Weak IP

protection

Niche

performer

Product or process

innovator serving niche

markets

End customer focus

Very specialized know-

how

Selective coops

Price premium

Varying IP

protection

Module

shaper

Focus on module

design and processes

Defines modules anew

Unique know-how

combination

Coop with OEM/system

connector

Value capture

from OEM

Cost reduction for

modules

Table 6-1: Archetypes of Innovation Management for Automotive Suppliers

[DAN2007]

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142

The new forms of e-commerce in the B2B sector and the extended EDI

standards (Electronic Data Interchange)—made possible by internet

technology—expedite the re-orientation of the value-added chain, which has

been ongoing since the mid-1990s. The use of e-commerce is pushed by the

automotive manufacturers in order to obtain savings in time during the product

development and implementation of the contract as well as gain further cost

reductions. In recent times, so-called B2B platforms were established. These

B2B-platforms offer to several companies virtual market places where the

relations to suppliers can be managed on-line [MAT2004].

By consistent realisation, both automotive manufacturers and suppliers can

benefit from system procurement: manufacturers profit from high-quality and

innovative products to lower costs, suppliers profit by increased order

quantities, more stable business relationships as well as higher competitiveness.

However, the mutual dependency between automotive manufacturers and their

suppliers has also grown. Meanwhile, this degree of dependency achieved a

historical value with manufacturing depths of only 30-35% [MAT2004].

6.3 Description of the Current Situation at KSPG

6.3.1 Corporate Organisation

KSPG is the parent company of Rheinmetall’s automotive sector. As a global

tier-one supplier to the automotive industry and because of its vast capabilities,

KSPG assumes leading positions in the product and component segments air

supply, emission control and pumps and in the development, manufacture and

aftermarket supply of pistons, engine blocks and plain bearings [KSP2012a].

In April 2012, the KSPG Group restructured its business into the following

three divisions [KSP2012b]:

Hardparts: Pistons, Aluminum-Technology, Plain Bearings and Large-Bore

Pistons.

Mechatronics: Pierburg and Pierburg Pump Technology.

Motorservice: Motor Service International and Motor Service Domestic

(incl. BF Germany).

Figure 6-3 presents KSPG’s divisional structure, which allows achieving an

interdivisional optimisation of processes as well as an even closer strategic

focus within the business units [KSP2012b].


143

With its systems and modules, KSPG generated sales of around EUR 2.313

million in 2011. At its production locations in Europe, North and South

America plus China, the group employs a workforce of around 11.548

employees [RHE2012].

The Mechatronic division comprises the two companies Pierburg GmbH and

Pierburg Pump Technology GmbH, which are both headquartered in Neuss,

Germany. Pierburg offers nowadays emission systems, commercial diesel

systems, actuators and solenoid valves. In 2008, Pierburg Pump Technology

GmbH (PPT) was founded as a specialist in innovative and advanced pumps

technology. Their product portfolio ranges from coolant pumps, oil pumps and

water recirculation pumps to vacuum pumps [KSP2012a].

Pistons

Aluminum-Technology

Plain bearings

International

Hardparts Motorservice

Large-Bore Pistons

Domestic

Div

isio

ns

Busin

ess U

nits

KSPG AG

Mechatronics

Pierburg

Pierburg Pump Technology

Figure 6-3: Divisional Structure of KSPG Automotive Group

The Hardparts division includes the companies KS Kolbenschmidt, KS

Aluminium-Technologie both located in Neckarsulm, Germany, and KS

Gleitlager in St. Leon-Rot, Germany. The current product range of this

Hardparts division comprises pistons, cylinder blocks and finish-machining,

engine plain bearings and Permaglide®, and large-bore pistons [KSP2012a].

As world-wide successful automotive supplier with outstanding expertise in the

fields of automotive components all around the engine and its role as tier-one

supplier, KSPG takes top positions on the respective markets and has

traditionally been one of the closest partners to the automotive industry. The

production development takes place in close co-operation with renowned car

manufacturers. Eco-friendly automotive technology for reducing emissions and

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144

efficient fuel consumption, downsizing, reliability, quality and safety are the

main factors driving the innovations of KSPG [KSP2012a].

6.3.2 Central Department Research and Technology

In 2010, the department Research and Technology was founded combining the

Advanced Engineering, the Central Engineering and New Propulsion

Technologies in one central corporate unit of the whole KSPG Group. In 2011,

KSPG spent EUR 130 million for Research and Development. This

corresponds approximately to 5,6% of the company’s total sales [RHE2012].

In August 2012, this organisation of the central department Research and

Technology was restructured, according to the new division structure of the

KSPG group. One major change is that parts of the Advanced Engineering are

now tied to the respective divisions of the KSPG Group. Figure 6-4 shows the

current organisation of KSPG Research and Technology.

Innovation ServicesKSPG

Quality Management Coordinator

KSPG

Resource ManagementKSPG

Research and Technology

KSPG

Central Engineering

KSPG

New Propulsion Technologies

KSPG

E-Mobility

KSPG

Test Benches & Methods

KSPG

Electronics

KSPG

Simulation & Quality Tools

KSPG

Materials

KSPG

Auxiliaries &

Alternative Drives

Mechatronics

Components &

Thermodynamics

Mechatronics

Base Engine & Tribology

Hardparts

Strategy and Integral Systems

KSPG

Advanced Engineering

KSPG / Mechatronics

KSPG (disciplinary)

Mechatronics (disciplinary)

Hardparts (disciplinary)

Figure 6-4: Organisation KSPG Central Department Research and

Technology from August 2012

The current Innovation Services as part of the Advanced Engineering

department work mainly for the KSPG division Mechatronics. In line with

strategic considerations, innovation management is still a comprehensive

corporate task. However, innovation services have a minor practical priority for


145

the division Hardparts than for Mechatronics. At Pierburg and Pierburg Pump

Technology, most of the experiences underlying this research work were made.

6.3.3 Existing Innovation Management at KSPG

The current innovation management process at KSPG is part of the KSPG

Advanced Development Process (ADP). The ADP and the division-specific

Product Development Processes (PDP) are clearly defined and well-established

stage-gate processes. The tools used by the innovation management and the

ADP are also very well defined and practically proved and applied. The

innovation management has been streamed up to the ADP and is responsible for

the collection, selection, and ranking of product ideas to feed the Advanced

Engineering department with new promising ideas [NEU2010], [NEU2011b].

This established innovation process at KSPG follows the innovation value

chain paradigm defined by Hansen and Bikinshaw [HAN2007] and explained

in Chapter 2.2.3. According to this model, the internal and external spread of

product ideas that have actually led to products is well handled through the

ADP and the PDP. Also the development of new products is very well

organised in the ADP. The selection method of ideas, up to now the main task

of innovation management at KSPG, is also rather satisfying, however a certain

improvement potential is expected and demanded by the top management

[NEU2011c]. The principal need for improvement, however, lies in idea

generation. Figure 6-5 shows this analysis against the background of the

innovation value chain.

Innovation

Valu

e C

hain IDEA GENERATION

In-HouseCross-

PollinationExternal

CONVERSION


DIFFUSION

Internal

Spread

External

Spread

?? ? +

Input: Ideas Output: Products

Application-related

(Division Responsibility)

Development-related

(AD Responsibility)

AD Project Proposals

once a year

3.

PDP

ADP

Tool: Innovation Database for

Rating & Processing


Ranking

IdeasSelection

Transfer

to ADP

Patent Attorneys

Ideas put back

Rejected ideas

2.

Idea Collection

by Innovation Management

Curr

ent

Innovation M

an

agem

ent

at

KS

PG

1.

Figure 6-5: Current Innovation management at KSPG according to the

Innovation Value Chain [NEU2012]

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146

The existing innovation management at KSPG mainly collects ideas. For this

purpose the innovation management uses three different types of tools or

sources. The main tool is the KSPG Innovation Database, which allows

collecting ideas continuously during the year. The second tool is a call for ideas

for advanced development projects once a year. This request is made by email

by the head of the Advanced Engineering department and addresses the top

management of the different divisions and business units of the KSPG group.

The third source is mainly the result of ad-hoc activities. Sporadically, external

ideas can be identified as possibly interesting for KSPG and will then be

analysed more deeply regarding their implementation at KSPG.

A specialty of the innovation management at the Mechatronics division of

KSPG is the Innovation Database as a central tool. It supports the innovation

management in the collection, evaluation and selection of inventions and

technical product ideas. This database was introduced by the former Advanced

Engineering department of Pierburg in 2006. During the year 2007, the

Innovation Database was substantially revised and rolled out anew. Since 2008,

there exists also a German-language version for Pierburg and an English-

language version for the PPT, which can also be operated by employees in

foreign locations.

In 2011, the configuration of the Innovation Database was completely updated

and improved, especially regarding performance and usability. This rework

included e.g. the optimisation of workflows through intelligent automation and

the storage of ADP project proposals, so that all three kinds of ideas shown in

Figure 6-5 are centrally collected in the Innovation Database. Since its rollout

in 2007, approximately over 500 inventions and technical product ideas, as well

as more than 100 ADP proposals have been collected there. In addition, the

Innovation Database is part of the corporate suggestion system as the medium

where ideas for internal process improvements are handled. This has the big

advantage that employees can use one and the same tool and easy-to-use

interface to communicate any type of idea.

The Innovation Database is available via intranet to all Pierburg and PPT

employees. The ideas and inventions stored in the Innovation Database are

secured and protected against the external access. The standardised process

cycle of the Innovation Database ensures a simplification and a shortening of

the operational workflow. Furthermore, all ideas and inventions in the

Innovation Database are stored in the idea pool, which ensures that ideas that

are not considered relevant at a certain point of time will not get lost. The fact

that all ideas and inventions are visible by all users of the database helps to

create transparency and to stimulate further ideas.

The workflow facilitated by the Innovation Database (Figure 6-6) can be

described as follows: idea contributors enter their ideas and classify them as


147

invention or technical product idea. The technical aspect of the innovation is

important and represents a first stop criterion. Subsequently, the innovation

manager makes a pre-selection in coordination with the patent attorney for

application-related ideas, and additionally with the Advanced Engineering

department in the case of development-related ideas. At Mechatronics, the

attribute “development-related” describes an idea or invention that has the

potential for a radical innovation, whereas “application-related“ is used in the

case of a technical detail improvement of an existing product, which leads

primarily to an incremental innovation and is relevant for the PDP rather than

the ADP (see Figure 6-5).

In case of inventions a further pre-selection by patent attorneys filters

innovations without success potential at an early stage. Ideas passing the pre-

selection successfully will be assessed by a team of nominated experts. The

evaluation criteria of the experts are: technology, patents and strategy,

substitution, customer needs and product life cycle, market, sales, investment

and budget, start of production, and resources. A ranking of the ideas and

inventions is done on the basis of the experts’ evaluations in cooperation with

the Advanced Engineering department. The next two steps “Preliminary

decision” and “Decision-making” terminate the process and describe the

transfer of the idea to the different development departments.

* Inventions and technical product ideas are here summarised mentioned as “idea”

** Patent Attorneys are not involved in decisions concerning innovations

Idea* contributor

Classify idea

Prepare Idea

Forward idea

All

ideas

are

visible

Innovation Manager

Classify idea

Select experts

Innovation Manager

Scan ideas

Propose idea again

Innovation Manager

Present idea selection

Generate evaluation

Formulate decision

Innovation Manager

Make pre-selection

Team of experts

Evaluation of idea

Patent

Attorneys**

work on

invention

notification

Coordi-

nation

with

develop-

ment

division

Coordination

with develop-

ment division

7.1 Implementing 7.3 Declined7.2 Deferred

Implemented

1.0 Draft

5.0 Preliminary decision

6.0 Decision-making

3.0 Coordination of experts

4.0 Evaluation

2.0 Pre-selection

0.0 Classification

Figure 6-6: The Process Cycle of the Innovation Database [NEU2011c]

This existing process for managing ideas at KSPG is explained in detail in the

corporate process model and has already been audited internally and externally

according to ISO/TS 16949:2009 [IAT2009].

Chapter 6

148

Although the current innovation management process is well accepted by

employees and superiors, practical experiences made during the last years

reveal that the mere passive collection of ideas is not sufficient to find

innovative ideas for the ADP. The very beginning of innovation is—apart from

the well-known three idea sources in Figure 6-5—very fuzzy, and the top

management of Advanced Engineering was convinced that the idea potential

was far from being exploited.

Therefore, the demand for an active idea generation and the need to improve

today’s innovation management process toward a structured and output-

oriented ideation process moved into the focus of KSPG’s Advanced

Engineering department. Against this background, the management has defined

the challenges of the new ideation process at KSPG as follows:

The fuzzy front-end of the innovation process has to be clearer.

Ideation has to run in a structured way to guarantee a continuous flow of

ideas.

Innovation management has to get an important directing role in the active

generation of ideas.

An innovative organisational culture that motivates employees and supports

the generation of ideas has to be developed.

The ideation process shall be systematic so as to provide an important

means of decision support.

6.4 Target Description of the Case Study

The global objective the case study is to validate our ideation reference process

model in the corporate context of the automotive supplier KSPG by the

introduction of a company-specific ideation process. The analysis of the

existing innovation management system at KSPG presented in Chapter 6.3.3,

and the challenges defined by the top management legitimate the relevance of

our activity.

We defined our main goals for this study as follows:

to derive a KSPG-specific ideation process from our ideation reference

process model, and

to initiate the deployment of this new process in the corporate environment

together with the top management so as to have an initial validation of our

results.


149

The application of the ideation process has to consider that the latter will be

associated with the ADP at KSPG. However, by its very nature, the new

ideation process has to lead to changes in the innovation organisation and

culture, which makes the introduction of the process at KSPG a long-term

initiative which goes far beyond the mere enlargement of the ADP.

6.5 Steps Towards the Process Derivation

6.5.1 Overview

In order to derive a KSPG-specific ideation process, our approach will follow

six major steps:

1. Identification of the priority areas of action based on the analysis of the

achievement levels of each key success factor of ideation in the currently

existing innovation process in the company.

2. Determination of the organisational elements in the company, which are

necessary to achieve each stage and gate of the ideation reference process

model.

3. Design of a company-specific adaptation of the ideation reference process

model, which takes into account the implementation of

(a) all the key success factors of ideation, as well as

(b) all the priority areas of action identified in step 1

according to the organisational elements determined in step 2.

4. Demonstration of the feasibility of the new company-specific ideation

process.

5. Proposition of a concept for the introduction of the new ideation process in

accordance with the existing organisation.

6. Accompaniment of the introduction and continuous improvement of the

ideation reference process model and the company-specific ideation

process based on gained experience and acquired know-how.

Our case study project started in March 2012, and we have – until the day of

the final editing of this manuscript – already passed all steps from 1 to 5 with

great satisfaction of the top management. The start of the last step number 6 is

scheduled for late autumn 2012.

Chapter 6

150

6.5.2 Step 1: Identification of Priority Areas of Action

For the identification of the priority areas of action a deeper as-is analysis of

the existing innovation process at KSPG is necessary. The major focus of this

analysis is to discover how each of the key success factors of ideation is

achieved at KSPG.

One of the first findings is that the Innovation Database and the organisation of

inventions and patent applications mainly dominate the innovation management

at KSPG Mechatronics. A critical analysis of the existing innovation

management system at Mechatronics reveals that currently the idea generation

is limited to a core group of approximately 5% of Mechatronics’ employees

acting as idea contributors. Although the tool is available to nearly 4.000

employees in all departments (like R&D, Sales, Purchasing, etc.), including

management and executives, and also in plants outside Germany in English

language in the case of PPT, input from not R&D-related departments and from

employees in leading positions outside the R&D department is very low.

Relying only on ideas and information from these well-known sources within

the company induces a threat of stagnation, and endangers the sustainability of

the company’s innovation process [NEU2011b].

The yearly call for ideas for advanced development projects is a very good

approach by the head of the Advanced Engineering department to involve more

actors into the idea generation. However, it causes a very large administrative

work effort at the end of each year where the planning of the resources for the

upcoming ADP projects has to be closed. Moreover, it fails to support the

generation of ideas pro-actively.

The deeper problem of the whole innovation management is that it started its

work with the development of a tool, the Innovation Database. This focus on

the tool happened without a transparent overall organisational direction towards

innovation. No clearly communicated innovation strategy from top management

exists until now.

In July 2012 a strategic project to define a product and innovation strategy for

KSPG Mechatronics has been launched. In this project, the Advanced

Engineering department is heavily involved, and the head of this department

has the project lead. First results, in particular the identification of innovation

fields, are expected for the end of 2012.

For the final evaluation of the achievement levels of each key success factor of

ideation in the currently existing innovation process, we surveyed corporate

documents and—this was a very important and valuable information source—

we had several talks with internal experts of KSPG. As a final result of our

analysis the following KSPG-specific fields of action can be formulated:


151

Action No. 1 (A1): Quantity and Quality!

KSPG has to generate high-quality and high-quantity ideas to ensure

innovation and competitiveness.

Action No. 2 (A2): Commitment and Focus!

Call for ideation requires a visible order from the management board and a

clear focus on previously defined and communicated fields of innovation.

Action No. 3 (A3): Connectivity and Effectiveness!

The generation and selection of ideas at KSPG do not happen in networks

which result in lost innovation potential.

Action No. 4 (A4): Creativity and Freedom!

Methodical creativity and freedom for the generation of ideas are not

integrated in the process-oriented corporate culture of KSPG.

Action No. 5 (A5): Competition and Dynamic!

Current ideation is not connected with a successful competition of the

business units for the advanced development budget.

6.5.3 Step 2: Determination of Organisational Elements

In the second step we analysed intensely the organisational framework at KSPG

to determine elements which facilitate or—on the contrary—inhibit to

implement the stages and gates of the ideation reference process model. One

important goal is to motivate the organisation at KSPG for the integration of

external and internal stakeholders to leverage ideation, like presented in

Chapter 5.5.1.

Thus, the existing product ideas from KSPG Mechatronics were explored to

identify their origins. A quantitative survey of 437 ideas from Pierburg and PPT

which have led to patents and product innovations revealed that most of the

ideas came up through the idea contributors’ own considerations. Figure 6-7

summarises the results of the analysis.

Chapter 6

152

0,5%

0,7%

1,1%

2,1%

2,5%

4,8%

5,3%

5,7%

6,9%

7,3%

8,2%

9,8%

45,1%

Desk research

Functional and/or constructional analysis of external products

External technical meeting with supplier

Cooperation with university

Patent research

Internal discussion with collegues

External technical meeting with customer

Internal utilisation of creativity techniques mainly brainstorming

Internal teamwork

Test results

Functional and/or constructional analysis of self-produced products

Internal development meeting with collegues

Idea contributor's own considerations

Figure 6-7: Origins of ideas (n=437 patent applications at Pierburg and PPT)

[NEU2012]

Another main origin of ideas is the internal exchange with colleagues, either

during internal development meetings, teamwork, internal brainstorming

sessions or discussions. Tests of existing self-produced or external products and

the analysis of current market requirements and future trends helped to generate

ideas in 19,2% of the cases.

Very important for the implementation of a stakeholder integrated ideation

process in the existing system is the fact that only 8,5% of the ideas occur

through the involvement of external stakeholders. The most influential external

stakeholders are the customers, universities and suppliers.

This analysis shows that several organisational measures will have to be

adopted in order to capitalise on a more open innovation system and to exploit

its potential. To capture new ideas from different sources, it is essential to

identify potential sources and specific methods to extract and format their data.

Also it is has to be analysed how this information will be collected and in

which time frame. Depending on the nature of the idea sources diverse methods

and techniques to extract, store and select the ideas have to be chosen

individually.

On the one hand, ideas can be collected within the company from employees

and management. For this purpose several methods already exist at KSPG as

described in Chapter 6.3.3. On the other hand, information from external

stakeholders must be observed and explored for usable ideas. Both these steps

represent a strategic move towards the adoption of Open Innovation

[CHE2003] principles.


153

The definition of internal stakeholders in Chapter 5.5.1 is the basis for our

analysis where in-house idea generation activities at KSPG have to be

addressed. Typically, only R&D employees submit ideas. Therefore, an

organisational framework to manage idea generation involving all internal

stakeholders at KSPG is essential. Table 6-2 summarises the identified direct

and indirect ways to generate ideas from these internal sources.

Stakeholder Idea Sources Direct ways

to get ideas

Indirect ways

to get ideas

Executive Executive in the

company

Idea generation

activities and

ideation process

Innovation

Database

General overview of

external stakeholders

interests

Management Management

professional in the

company

Same as first

source

Same as first source

Expert

Departments Departments includes

R&D, sales,

purchasing, quality,

manufacturing

Same as first

source

Additionally:

Contractual

agreements

Direct talks

Especially sales should

capture customer ideas

Purchasing should collect

supplier ideas

After-Sales Employees from the

KSPG division

Motorservice promote

and sell products

directly to end-users

Same as first

source

Additionally:

Contractual

agreements

Direct talks

Organisation of

workshops or seminars at

the independent

workshops to present and

discuss new product

solutions directly with the

end-users

Cross-functional

Teams

A interdepartmental

group dedicated to

coming up with new

ideas, research and

knowledge

Outcome based

ideas

Inventor circles

This group can have

members from all

departments and so

different aspects can be

considered

External

Employees Collective term for

loosely affiliated

employees, like

project-based

employees, temporary

employees, freelancers

or students

Same as first

source

Stimulus from outside

Possible solution to avoid

to be professionally

blinkered

Administration Departments includes

HR, Legal Affairs,

Logistics, Controlling,

Finance, Accounting,

IT

Same as first

source

Legal Affairs may support

with information about

legislation

Controlling identifies cost

savings related to product

design

Table 6-2: Overview of Internal Idea Sources at KSPG

Chapter 6

154

Providing a tool like the Innovation Database to support idea collection tool is

important, but not sufficient. Innovation management also has to create an

environment for the promotion of ideas. Ideation is a topic of every employee.

Thus, innovation management has to motivate all employees to take part in the

ideation activities, and in particular give the impulses for ideas in particular by

forming dedicated cross-functional ideation teams.

A first effective measure in this direction is the creation of regular internal

KSPG Ideation Meetings [NEU2012]. The periodicity for these meetings and

reporting to the top management should be adjusted to the major objectives of

the meetings:

The wider the ideation topic, and the earlier the status of the ideation

process, the longer the meeting intervals can be.

The more concrete the discussed ideas are, the more often the ideation team

should meet, and the more intensively their work should be targeted at

making the idea(s) more mature (idea maturation process).

The already existing Innovation Database can support these meetings

effectively as a reporting tool. Forms should be available for all the criteria the

strategic decision committee needs.

Also the role of the team moderator (leader) is vital for leading the team

discussions into the right direction from the very beginning (starting with a

summary of the results already achieved in previous meetings).

New ideas coming up during such meetings (even if they are not directly related

to the focus idea under discussion) have to be kept track of, and communicated

after the meeting.

Forming these KSPG ideation meetings will be the first main step to achieve a

reliable idea generation process at KSPG AG.

As shown in Chapter 5.5.1, our analysis of external sources of ideas will

concentrate on following six main sources: customers, competitors, science,

society, government and suppliers. Within KSPG a lot of activities and

techniques exist which are directly connected with idea sources and the

generation of product ideas. Other actions concern indirect idea sources and

influence only indirectly the generation of product ideas. These information

sources, which help mainly management and business development up to now,

have to be analysed for how they can also be used for a successful ideation.

Table 6-3 shows the major existing external idea sources from KSPG’s point of

view.


155

Stakeholder Idea Sources Direct ways

to get ideas

Indirect ways

to get ideas

Customers Core customer

groups

Customer submitted

ideas

Interviews

Customer contracts

negotiations

Customer analysis

Satisfaction surveys

Customer database

Internal customer-

related teams

Competitors Direct competitors Competitive Intelligence

Direct talks during

international fairs and

summits

Market research firms

Science Universities Sponsoring of university

chairs

Master thesis projects

Networking

Scanning new

technology releases,

like PhD thesis or

other publications

Society Groups of interests

like industry

associations

Media sources

Working groups

Contact with editors

Publications from

associations

Scanning media,

especially internet

research or patent

research

Government Governmental

departments

Visiting respective

website

Scanning new

technology regulations

Attend in national and

international fund

programs of innovative

projects

Scanning

commentaries

concerning new laws

Suppliers 1. Suppliers of

physical goods like

tier-one and/or tier-

two supplier, etc.

Supplier submitted ideas

Meetings

Contract negotiations

Supplier analysis

Research for news

from suppliers

2. Supplier of

information, like

consultants and

research firms

Direct talks

Visiting presentations

Networking

Working with database

of consultants

Use of provided

information services

Table 6-3: Overview of External Idea Sources at KSPG

Usually KSPG has access to a lot of possible external idea sources like the ones

shown in Table 6-3 which they could capitalise on. Some typical problems with

the utilisation of these external idea sources are:

Information of these external idea sources is widely spread within the

company.

No central storage of this knowledge exists.

There is no systematic knowledge management implemented so far.

Chapter 6

156

So the collection of information must be carried out individually, and it is

necessary to know the right contact person within KSPG for the collection of

specific information about and from the external idea sources.

To achieve sustainable innovation success, it is important to obtain internal

acceptance for the usage of external idea sources. One possible way is to use

internal contact persons for the collection of external ideas first. However, it is

important to minimise the individual work effort for the internal contact person

to get information from external stakeholders, and to share this knowledge with

other colleagues. When this approach is applicable it makes sense to widen the

sources of ideas within the specific categories of external stakeholders which

are not fully integrated in the idea generation process. Thus, the exploitation of

external idea sources is first of all an internal step-by-step process.

In the context of this thesis, one important step in the direction of a better

collection of customer ideas at KSPG was our creation of permanent customer-

related teams with team members from all KSPG sales divisions (Figure 6-8)

[NEU2011c]. The main tasks of these teams are:

1. Build-up knowledge about KSPG customers and share these customer

insights with team members.

2. Development of a homogenous and consistent understanding of the

customers’ future production plans and capacities, which represents the

KSPG level of information and which is binding for all business divisions.

3. Discussion of the customer-related topics and estimation of a final result,

which represents KSPG’s common market view.

Members of these teams have the possibility to share their knowledge with

colleagues, and make their market estimations transparent. For the management

of these KSPG Customer Teams (i.e., sales people in particular), we created an

IT solution within the KSPG’s intranet, the so-called team room. Thanks to this

new facility, it is now possible to collect and to store systematically the data

provided by the customer team members. Among these data there will be

invaluable customer ideas, which will be fed into the Innovation Database and

thus into the complete ideation process.


157

KSPG Customer TeamsTeam Room in

KSPG Intranet

Customer-

related

information

Feedback to KSPG Customer Teams

Team No. 1

Team No. 2

Team No. 6

Team No. 7

Team No. 8

Team No. 9

Team No. …

Team No. 3

Team No. 5

Team No. 4


System

Corporate

database

available via

KSPG’s

intranet

Innovation

Database

Figure 6-8: Customer Teams help capitalise on Customer Ideas [NEU2011c]

Further external idea sources for innovation purposes should be definitely used

to obtain the targeted improvement of idea generation at KSPG. The major

challenge of this will be to find those methods and tools that can be applied to

KSPG in a way that they fit into the current organisational culture, while at the

same time leading to the desired cultural transformation regarding open

innovation.

6.5.4 Step 3: Design of a KSPG-specific Ideation Process

Based on the key success factors of ideation (see Chapter 5.3.1), all the

identified KSPG-specific action fields (see Chapter 6.5.2) and the determining

factors of KSPG’s organisation (see Chapter 6.5.3) our design of a company-

specific adaptation of the ideation reference process model (Chapter 5.3.2, in

particular Figure 5-2) to KSPG followed a systematic procedure: for each of the

stages, gates, and associated actions we analysed the corresponding

organisational and cultural elements, activities, and tools that would be

concerned at KSPG. We aimed at finding out which roles to assign to these

entities, and where to place them in the ideation process such that the key

success factors and the KSPG-specific action fields can be taken into account.

In Figure 6-9 we present the resultant KSPG-specific ideation process, which is

the result of very valuable discussions, especially with the head of Advanced

Engineering, and accepted by the top management from the central department

Research and Technology of KSPG in Mai 2012.

Chapter 6

158

Figure 6-9: KSPG-specific Ideation Process – C3 Ideation Process (IP)

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ADVANCED DEVELOPMENT PROCESS (ADP)


159

We aligned the design and configuration of the KSPG-specific ideation process

with the main focus of active idea generation and effective idea selection, but

also to promote ideation and manage ideation activities. For example, that was

the reason for the eye-catching name “C3” and the description of the stages as

Call & Commit,

Connect & Create, and

Choose & Cancel.

So the ideation process should attract attention and be memorable for the

employees of KSPG, which will also ease the upcoming related campaigns.

Every stage, action, and gate (decision point) corresponds to one or more key

success factors and/or a field for priority action identified in Step 1. Table 6-4

presents the mapping of the KSPG-specific action fields.

KSPG-specific

Ideation

Process Phase

Ideation Activities Tools / Methods for

the Implementation

KSPG-specific

Fields of

Action

Call &

Commit

External Analysis

Decision Support

Template

Innovation Board

Meeting

Innovation Board

Meeting Protocol

A1 and A2

Internal Analysis

Business Unit Innovation Strategies


Target Agreement

Resource Commitment

Connect &

Create

Stakeholder Management Decision Support

Template

KSPG Ideation

Tool Box

Innovation

Review Meetings

A3 and A4

Network Management

Partner Management

KSPG Ideation Tool Box

Guided Ideation

KSPG Wild Card Ideation

Choose &

Cancel

Idea Assessment Decision Support

Template

Innovation Board

Meeting

Innovation Board

Meeting Protocol

A5 Idea Communication

Idea Transfer

Table 6-4: Mapping of the identified Fields of Action with the phases of the

KSPG-specific Ideation Process

Chapter 6

160

Call & Commit

The first stage Call & Commit corresponds to the prerequisite stage from the

ideation reference process model (see Chapter 5.4). This phase of the KSPG

Ideation Process focuses on the call for a high-quantity of high-quality ideas.

The visible order for ideation comes from the management board based on

previous internal and external analysis of the business units. The business units

have to define their innovation focus und describe opportunities and threats.

These assumptions find their way into the overall KSPG innovation strategy

and innovation priorities, which are committed by the management board. This

board will also set a timeline for the ideation activities. To assure the quality of

ideation, top management provides agreed targets and the needed resources,

including the possibilities to generate ideas in a connected environment.

Connect & Create

The next stage Connect & Create follows the generation stage of the ideation

reference process model (see Chapter 5.5). The main aspect of this phase of the

KSPG Ideation Process is that ideation has to happen in networks of internal

and external stakeholder and partners. KSPG has to capitalise on internal and

external expertise. Possible idea sources have been already be identified by our

stakeholder analysis (see Chapter 6.5.3). The top management has to find a way

to find the right balance between the freedom for creativity and its

entrepreneurial and commercial objectives and support the ideation activities

with organisational changes in the corporate culture.

Choose & Cancel

The last stage Choose & Cancel is equal to the selection stage from the ideation

reference process model (see Chapter 5.6). This phase is exclusively dedicated

to the identification of the most promising ideas for innovation and the transfer

of these right ideas to the ADP. In the past, this selection of ideas was not

always very transparent. With the KSPG-specific ideation process there will be

more dynamic and interaction with the several business units. This phase will

encourage a competitive spirit amongst the business units to present the best

ideas to the management board to gain the required resources for advanced

development. This competition shall motivate the actors of the ideation process

to generate high-quality ideas.

The whole KSPG-specific ideation process matches exactly with the standards

of process visualisation in the company, and is placed in front of the ADP

(Figure 6-10). In accordance with the company’s quality standards, documents

and models have been created for all scheduled meetings, as well as most of the

tasks and tools. Taking into account the existing documents and processes at


161

KSPG was essential to facilitate the introduction of the new process and the

transformation of the corporate culture of ideation.

Entire Innovation Process at KSPG

Ideation Process

(IP)

Advanced Development Process

(ADP)

Product Development Process

(PDP)

IP Gates ADP Gates PDP Gates

S A B C 0 1 2 3 4 G1 G2 G3 G4 G5 G6 G7

Figure 6-10: KSPG-specific Ideation Process embedded in the entire

Innovation Process

The company-specific ideation process requires the introduction of specific

tools and methods that will help to implement the process in the company’s

particular corporate environment.

Decision Support Template

The Decision Support Template is the principal document during the Call &

Commit stage of the ideation process. It accompanies the whole range of

activities during this stage. It is essential for the management to make

employees report the numerous results of each activity, from the external

analysis to the needed resources.

The Decision Support Template formulates decision points as a preparation for

the first Innovation Board Meeting and therefore prepares decisions from the

management board. It is also applied at the second Innovation Board Meeting.

Moreover, it describes the implementation planning of the subsequent Connect

& Create process stage. The KSPG Decision Support Template can be found in

the Appendix of this work.

Chapter 6

162

Innovation Board Meetings

The Innovation Board Meeting is very important because it represents the

manifestation of the top management’s commitment. There will be two

Innovation Board Meetings per year. The first meeting places the active Call &

Commit for ideation under the patronage of the top management. This

Innovation Board Meeting concludes the prerequisites and gives the go-ahead

for the next stage, the Connect & Create stage.

The decision-points, which have already been prepared in the Decision Support

Template by then, will be discussed and finally agreed. In addition to this

decision-making, the top management grants mandates to the business units to

implement executive orders within the framework of KSPG’s ideation process.

The result of the first Innovation Board Meeting is the completion of Gate A,

where the innovation fields are defined, and the top management commitment

is sealed.

The second Innovation Board Meeting marks the end of the Choose & Cancel

stage. The suggested ideas and solutions that have previously been assessed as

the best potential ADP projects, are chosen and transferred to the ADP. The top

management decides about the necessary responsibilities and resources. Thus,

this Innovation Board Meeting results in the final decision-making of Gate C,

where ideas are selected and made ready to be transferred to the ADP.

Innovation Board Meeting Protocol

The decisions made during the Innovation Board Meetings have to be

documented. With the Innovation Board Protocol, the explicit approval of Gate

A and the final release of Gate C are recorded in a written form. This way, all

the participants of the Innovation Board Meeting have the certainty about the

top management’s commitment and the decided tasks, responsibilities and

resources.

Furthermore, this document helps to manage and control the ideation tasks. The

Innovation Board Meeting Protocol can be used to communicate the defined

contribution of each actor in the ideation process. The KSPG Innovation Board

Meeting Protocol Template is in the Appendix of this work.


During the execution stage—the so-called Connect & Create—, the KSPG

Ideation Tool Box shall facilitate creativity and the generation of ideas.

The main reason for our proposed KSPG Ideation Tool Box is that we want to

bring together the individual experts systematically in our recommended

KSPG Ideation Meetings (see Chapter 6.5.3). However, it really matters how to

conduct these meetings. The KSPG Ideation Meetings shall facilitate a


163

maximum of creativity, but also be held in guided and controlled manner to

achieve a specific goal. Current comparable meetings at KSPG are either

completely formal or too chaotic. Therefore, we see the need to introduce

organised KSPG Ideation Meetings and the establishment of tools that allow an

effective and efficient guidance through the meeting.

The KSPG Ideation Tool Box is based on experiences of the research team and

relates to the specific organisation of the company and the ideation topic. We

decided to put these methods into the KSPG Ideation Tool Box (see Appendix),

which were identified through our expert interviews (see Chapter 5.2.2) and our

analysis of the current situation at KSPG (see Chapter 6.5.3). This Ideation

Tool Box represents a bunch of methods, which a company can easily apply

during the idea generation phase and are considered as extremely valuable

because they have been repeatedly tested in practice to be effective in

generating promising ideas [BAC2007], [NÖL2010].

Nevertheless, this repertoire of tools can be continuously enlarged. The choice

for one specific or the combination of multiple tools depends on the certain

problem or desired solution.

Innovation Review Meetings

During the Connect & Create stage, the Innovation Review Meetings make sure

that the communication between the numerous business units and the Advanced

Engineering department works and if it provides general support. We

recommended that this Innovation Review Meeting be held at least twice during

this execution stage in order to make sure that the idea contributors get

sufficient feedback and guidance.

Finally, the last Innovation Review Meeting in the Connect & Create stage is

the right platform to close this ideation process phase by approving Gate B.

All these measures aim at involving internal and external stakeholders of the

company with more focus, more challenge, and more involvement.

6.5.5 Step 4: Feasibility Demonstration

In the scope of this thesis, top management asked us to demonstrate the

feasibility to the prerequisite stage (Call & Commit) of the ideation process

using the topic of E-mobility.

The current perception of the top management at KSPG of this topic can be

summarised in the following core statements:

Chapter 6

164

OEMs focus on electric cars and the electrification of the powertrain. These

decisions are driven by environmental political decisions.

Because of its product range, which emphasises on combustion engine,

KSPG is not noticed by the OEMs as a partner for developments in the

field of E-Mobility. Thus, KSPG risks to be excluded from these future

developments in the long run.

Through the development of the Range Extender in cooperation with the

company FEV, KSPG has done a first important step towards a strategic

orientation towards E-Mobility.

Against this background, we had the possibility to verify our general

considerations concerning the KSPG ideation process with special regard to our

designed ideation tools and methods.

We had several discussions with the head of the New Propulsion Technologies

department about proposed ideation process and its practical implementation to

E-Mobility as ideation topic. His assessment was very positive, and he

underlines in particular the necessity of all the actions that we propose in the

prerequisite phase.

Guided by the structure of the Decision Support Template, we discussed each

particular issue related to the prerequisite phase, and filled out the Decision

Support Template accordingly. Subsequently we presented this document to the

top management, who agreed that it was valuable support for them and a

significant improvement compared to the current situation.

6.5.6 Step 5: Concept Proposal for the Introduction

Due to a very recent major re-organisation involving the R&D department in

particular, the final decision by the top management how to implement the

KSPG-specific ideation process is still open at the time of writing this

manuscript. The major issue is the scope of the organisation that should be

involved in the introductory stage, and the financial governance. However, the

final decision is expected in late autumn 2012.

In the context of this thesis, we prepared this introduction step well by working

out a concept proposal for the introduction of the KSPG-specific ideation

process. Thus, we have come up with an implementation planning, which can

be executed as soon as it comes to a decision. This implementation proposal

includes the following main points to be realised by the Innovation Services

department:

1. General preparations concerning the implementation of the KSPG-specific

ideation process:


165

(a) supporting the decision-making and final release regarding the KSPG-

specific ideation process,

(b) elaborating and coordinating a time schedule for the implementation of

the ideation process,

(c) supporting the communication and the rollout of the KSPG-specific

ideation process and its associated ideation tools within KSPG,

(d) identifying and involving promoters for the successful implementation

of the ideation process within KSPG,

(e) defining interfaces between the different actors and their

responsibilities through the whole KSPG-specific ideation process,

(f) defining the paths and forms of communication during the KSPG-

specific ideation process,

(g) planning of time schedule for the entire implementation,

(h) governance during the whole process to ensure ideation progress at

KSPG.

2. Measures regarding the Call & Commit stage:

(a) preparation of the Innovation Board Meeting,

(b) supporting business units’ internal and external analyses,

(c) ensuring and company-broad communication of management decisions

and executive orders of the Innovation Board Meeting.

3. Measures regarding the Connect & Create stage:

(a) identification, nomination and motivation of experts to put together in

dedicated ideation teams,

(b) supporting the establishment of ideation networks within and without

KSPG,

(c) supporting the KSPG Customer Teams,

(d) coordinating trainings regarding the KSPG Ideation Tool Box,

(e) moderated and targeted application of the KSPG Ideation Meetings

according to the KSPG Ideation Tool Box,

(f) initiation and support of Innovation Review Meetings,

(g) supporting the elaboration of the idea proposals according to the

evaluation criteria specified in the Call & Commit stage.

4. Measures regarding the Choose & Cancel stage:

Chapter 6

166

(a) preparation of Innovation Board Meeting,

(b) supporting the evaluation and selection of project ideas,

(c) ensuring the transfer of selected project ideas to the ADP,

(d) ensuring the feedback of deferred ideas in the next ideation cycle,

(e) ensuring of further processing of declined ideas.

5. Measure regarding the assurance of learning in the organisation:

(a) documentation about the application of the KSPG-specific ideation

process,

(b) identification of lessons learned,

(c) identification and application of improvement measures.

At the end of this implementation process, the results, as well as the applied

methodology will be critically assessed against numerous criteria, such as

performance, effectiveness, applicability to other companies and sectors, etc.

6.5.7 Step 6: Accompaniment of the Introduction

Our overall objective is to validate our reference ideation process in the

corporate context of KSPG. This means that we will cause an organisational

change towards open innovation with the introduction of the process. This

change has to be accompanied. Due to its highly competitive and strategic

nature, our validation project is

the subject of long negotiations with top management,

a project that requires financial investments from the entire organisation,

a project whose effects are visible and assessable only in the medium-term

or even long-term,

a project that involves many parts of the company’s organisation, and

a process of transformation of the company’s organisational culture.

All these factors make the acquisition, launch, and support of such a project

difficult and incur an intensive investment of time and effort. Nevertheless, we

expect several positive effects to result from this project:

The project will come up with a clear documentation of the approach that

has been applied, and the experiences gained from it. It will also deliver a

critical assessment of each step, as well as of the global result in order to

validate the process.


167

It will create a positive attitude of stakeholder groups with respect to their

own involvement in the ideation process.

It will open the mindset of the affected stakeholders for changes that will

significantly contribute to the improvement of the organisation’s innovation

power.

The project will deliver an increased number of new ideas contributed by

several experts from different fields.

The implementation of the KSPG-specific ideation process will establish a

learning cycle in the sense of gaining experiences through living the process.

Increased practices and learned skills will lead to a successive improvement of

the process description, which is enriched by empirical values. This will help

the company’s management and employees to handle the KSPG-specific

ideation process much better.

A large-scale validation will occur from late autumn 2012 when the KSPG-

specific ideation process will be launched at the level of the entire organisation.

The top management of the departments Research and Technology and also

Advanced Engineering support the introduction of this new process.

6.5.8 Added Value for KSPG

The key target of the case study was to propose KSPG a systematic approach of

moving from a classical, technical idea collection toward an innovation

management that addresses the active generation and target-oriented selection

of ideas. We awakened the need for a KSPG-specific ideation process and

achieved to convince the top management for its implementation within the

company.

They see the long-term added value of our efforts in establishing the KSPG

ideation process company-wide. Table 6-5 compares shortly the situation at

KSPG before and after the derivation of a KSPG-specific ideation process and

summarises the added value for KSPG that resulted immediately from our work

on this case study.

Before Derivation of a

KSPG Ideation

Process

After Derivation of a

KSPG Ideation

Process

Added Value Reference

Few information

about best practice

Findings from

external interviews

Knowledge about

best practice

Chapter 5.2.2

No defined success

factors of ideation

Findings from

literature research and

external interviews

Defined key success

Factors for the

ideation process

Chapter 5.3.1

Chapter 6

168

Loosely defined

fields of action

concerning ideation

As-is analysis of the

existing innovation

process at KSPG with

focus on current

innovation

management

Clearly formulated

fields of action

Chapter 6.3.3

Chapter 6.5.2

No systematic

analysis of the

organisational

aspects that

facilitate an

innovative

corporate culture

Analysis of the

current organisation

situation and

corporate culture at

KSPG

Determination of

KSPG

organisational

elements that

influence ideation

Chapter 6.5.3

Idea sources not

clearly identified

Internal and external

stakeholder analysis

Opportunities to

involve internal and

external

stakeholders as idea

sources into the

ideation process

Chapter 6.5.3

No clear process for

the fuzzy front-end

of the innovation

process

Design of a KSPG-

specific ideation

process based on the

ideation reference

process model

KSPG-specific

ideation process

with associated

KSPG-specific

methods and tools

Chapter 5.3.2

Chapter 6.5.4

Figure 6-9

No active idea

generation, only

idea collection

Design of the stages

Call & Commit as

well as Connect &

Create is focused to

lever active idea

generation

Idea generation

oriented innovation

management system

Chapter 6.5.4

No methods and

tools for active idea

generation

Decision Support

Template

Innovation Board

Meetings

Innovation Board

Meeting Protocol

KSPG Ideation Tool

Box

Innovation Review

Meetings

KSPG-specific

methods and tools

for ideation

Chapter 6.5.4

Appendix

Idea selection not

systematic and

transparent

Design of the stage

Choose & Cancel is

primarily dedicated to

support effective and

efficient idea

selection

Confidence in

future decision-

making regarding

upcoming ADP

projects

Chapter 6.5.4

No internal

marketing of

innovation

management

Visualisation and

“branding” of the

KSPG-specific

ideation process as

“C3”

KSPG-specific

ideation process fits

into the existing

process landscape

and provides

elements that are

Chapter 6.5.4

Figure 6-10


169

easy to

communicate

No guideline for

implementing a

company-wide

process for

structured idea

generation and idea

selection

Concept Proposal for

the Introduction of

the KSPG-specific

ideation process

To-do-list for the

implementation of

the KSPG-specific

ideation process

Chapter 6.5.6

Table 6-5: Added Value for Innovation Management after the Derivation of

a KSPG-specific Ideation Process

Based on the results and experiences of the case study, the major impact of the

KSPG-specific ideation process is the increased level of information available

to the top management of KSPG. The initially very fuzzy early innovation

activities have become significantly more transparent and organised.

Our work on this case study and additionally our findings from the expert

interviews (see Chapter 5.2.2) confirmed that the need for a systematic ideation

process is widely spread in automotive industry. KSPG represents no special

case, it is rather a very typical example within this sector. The implementation

of the KSPG-specific ideation process is the first step in the right direction to

reinforcing ideation and consequently leveraging innovations.

171

Part IV:

Global Conclusion

173

7 Conclusion

Every innovation is based on an idea whose appearance marks the starting point

of innovation activities. Because of the increasing innovation pressure today, it

is indispensable for companies to not only wait for the birth of good ideas, but

rather to act pro-actively in facilitating the generation of ideas with

commercialisation potential.

The generation of ideas usually happens in the blurry cloud in the front of the

innovation process. Researchers in the field of NPD call this phase “fuzzy

front-end”. Right here in this stage of innovation, companies have to encourage

the creativity. They see themselves confronted with the problem of stimulating

the generation of ideas on the one hand, and on the other hand they want to

manage this phase in an organised and targeted manner to cope with resource

restrictions.

Our contribution to solve this dilemma is built on the following main pillars:

1. We defined and introduced the term ideation to describe more precisely the

procedure of idea generation and selection for innovations (see Chapter 3).

This enabled us to focus our research work and to position ideation at the

very beginning of the fuzzy front-end of the existing definition of the

entire innovation process.

2. Based on our literature research (see Chapter 5.1) and expert interviews

(see Chapter 5.2) we were able to define key success factors for ideation

that are applicable to any specific organisation (see Chapter 5.3.1).

3. Based on these key success factors we created an ideation reference

process model (see Chapter 5.3.2) that follows the principles of stage-gate

processes. The mapping of the key success factors to the ideation reference

process model provided us an output-oriented structuring of the activities

during the primary steps of the fuzzy front-end.

4. By developing the ideation reference process model we discovered the

prominent role of the systematic involvement of internal and external

stakeholders in the entire ideation process that implies a cultural change

towards open innovation. With our ideation reference process model we

Chapter 7

174

provide an approach to how this cultural reorganisation can be initiated and

processed.

5. We described major aspects of every phase of the ideation reference

process model regarding to more opened ideation activities and their

practical implementation (see Chapters 5.4, 5.5 and 5.6). Our ideation

reference process model, its description, and the proposed implementation

methods are generic enough to be applicable in several different business

sectors as a guideline because of its template character.

6. We introduced the specific characteristics of the context of our case study,

which is in the automotive industry sector. We had a particular look at the

innovation management processes, needs, and culture of occidental

automotive OEMs and suppliers (see Chapter 6.2).

7. We derived a company-specific ideation process to validate our ideation

reference process model within the corporate setting of the automotive

supplier KSPG Automotive Group in Germany and developed methods and

tools which are tailor-made to meet this company’s requirements (see

Chapter 6.5.4).

8. We prepared a detailed implementation proposal for the corporate-wide

rollout of the company-specific ideation process (see Chapter 6.5.6). In the

context of this work, integration means that the ideation process has to be

realised in the company’s process landscape and organisational

environment. The ideation process, which did not exist prior to our work,

has been added to KSPG’s official process landscape, including the

governance structure required for its implementation within the

organisation.

In terms of the positioning of our results in the research landscape, the creation

of an ideation process was generally determined by our intention to combine

aspects from modern innovation management with NPD research results. With

our ideation reference process model we succeeded in recommending a

structure of the very beginning of the fuzzy front-end, and consequently we

achieved to link the subject of ideation with NPD research. With the

derivation of a company-specific ideation process from our generic ideation

reference process model we were able to transfer our academic results directly

into an industrial context.

Due to the fact that the early phase of the innovation process represents a very

recent field of research, we believe that our approach closes some gaps and

represents a very good compromise to make dynamic ideation activities

systematic while at the same time keeping up the high level of creativity that is

necessary to let new ideas flourish.

175

8 Perspectives

Our research work is located at the intersection of three scientific disciplines:

engineering sciences, economic sciences, and social sciences. The term

“ideation”, which nourishes the innovation process in its very beginning, is the

element in the centre of this intersection that represents the connection between

these three sciences. This multidisciplinary nature gives rise to numerous

research and validation projects in a variety of different contexts with respect to

our initial research question: “How is it possible to create a structured approach

towards effective and efficient ideation?”

We consider the value of our research very important, particularly because

there are only few comparable studies that deal with the very beginning of the

fuzzy front-end of the innovation process. Although our research results

satisfied our expectations, they also inspired us about several aspects which we

could not cover in this thesis, but which we consider absolutely worth

investigating. In the following, we briefly outline these research perspectives.

Evaluation of the Success Factors of Ideation

In the scope of this work, the validation of the identified success factors was

based on qualitative research, namely expert interviews. Due to this selected

methodology, we were confronted with two kinds of restrictions, like the

sample size as well as the lack of variation of professional affiliation. However,

this limitation provides a starting point for future analyses.

It is clear that experts dedicated to innovation management are indeed aware of

the hurdles concerning ideation. Future efforts would benefit from the

incorporation of larger and/or more varied interview samples that include more

experts from other business sectors, or stakeholders (like e.g. researchers or

consumers). The enlargement of the sample size towards the fulfilment of

constraints for a quantitative research design may provide the statistical proof

of the success factors.

Chapter 8

176

Evaluation of the Ideation Reference Process Model

The next essential step in our research is to validate and improve our generic

ideation reference process model according to the results of the implementation

of the company-specific process at KSPG. To complete the full picture, the

efficiency of our approach has to be evaluated.

However, most of the known indicators used to assess the performance of

business processes are not suitable to achieve reliable and useful evaluation

results of the ideation process. Due to its position in the fuzzy front-end of

innovation, ideation exhibits complex characteristics which are difficult to

measure. Therefore tools and methods have to be found to gather the data to

determine the assessment criteria for validating the performance and maturity

of the ideation process.

Despite this general assessment problem, it is very important to derive from our

ideation reference process model other company-related ideation processes.

Because with the increasing amount of company-specific processes, more case

studies are available providing usable experiences from practise and valuable

lessons learned. As a Russian proverb says: “Repetition is the mother of

learning” [MER1995].

These future case studies have to aim at varying

1. the sectoral context of the company, or

2. the existing management approach in the company, or

3. the size of the company.

Regarding the first objective the company can operate in one of the following

three sectors:

Group 1: case studies from automotive industry,

Group 2: case studies from non-automotive but technology-driven industries,

and

Group 3: case studies from non-technology-driven industries.

Such results will help evaluate the universal applicability of our ideation

reference process model.

With respect to the second objective, the existing management approach, we

want to revive an eminent finding of Khurana and Rosenthal [KHU1998].

Based on their case studies they found out that they have to take two contrary

management approaches into account for their holistic front-end model

[KHU1998]:

1. Formality in the front-end:

Perspectives

177

process orientation,

explicitness of product definition and related issues, and

broad business perspective.

2. A culture-driven approach:

strong organisational culture based on cross-functional interactions,

“subtle control”, i.e., ambiguous direction from management, and

consensus and agreement among development stakeholders, and

deep understanding of new product development, including complex

interactions, by key organisational members.

During our research work, we have seen these two different managerial

directions confirmed and we recognised that the need of a generally very

abstract topic like idea generation and idea selection in the form of structured

process is typical for process-driven organisations of occidental countries.

From our point of view, companies from this part of the world will drive the

integration of an ideation process like ours. Therefore, it is evident that future

research may focus on this special cultural aspect.

The last objective addresses studies from companies of different sizes.

Especially large and established companies are confronted with the problem of

organisational inertia and change resistance regarding radical innovations and

new processes. Social systems like organisations and corporations develop

standards and routines for stabilisation and complexity reduction [GLO2011].

While mature technologies and successful behaviours are seen as reliable,

highly innovative intentions will be ignored for fear of the operation of the

company [AHU2001]. Adjustments of the status quo in form of incremental

innovations are preferred to radical innovations. This preference of well-known

solutions results in the organisational dilemma that social systems try to prevent

innovations although they need them to survive [POH2005].

Facing these characteristics of large end established companies, further

research may survey how well our ideation process performs in small and

medium sized companies.

Indicators and Assessment Criteria to Evaluate Ideas during the Process

Generally speaking, every idea is a good idea. In order not to restrict the

creativity of the stakeholders involved in the ideation process, we have to

consider that any idea is good and relevant for a defined subject at the start of

the process.

Chapter 8

178

Thus, depending on the available budget and the resource restrictions, it is

necessary to prioritise ideas according to their potential of becoming successful

innovations on the market, but without losing the other less promising ideas,

which may turn into high-potential ideas in the near or far future when the

context changes. One major milestone of our ideation process is the

presentation of new ideas worthy to pass the money gate. As a result, it is

essential to define and communicate indicators and assessment criteria to

monitor ideas during the process and rate their commercial success.

However, which indicators and assessment criteria to use? Are there any

evaluation criteria which can combine subjective estimations about vague

future trends with objective indicators that assess the potential of an idea? The

identification of such criteria will provide the stakeholders of the ideation

process the means and tools to calculate these indicators and to present them in

suitable manner for decision makers to facilitate their judgements.

These questions have been partly answered, albeit with particular regard to the

interests of KSPG. A more fundamental and generic treatment of this important

subject is yet to be done.

Stakeholder Integration

As a part of this work we have identified that nowadays idea management is

mostly related to the corporate suggestion system, which addresses all

employees to contribute ideas for the improvement of the internal processes of

the own company (see Chapter 3.1.1). But typically, ideas for new products and

services of the company are not processed by these methods. Instead,

innovation is considered to be the subject of only a few employees mostly in

leading positions.

One major aspect of this thesis is the hypothesis that the integration of different

experts in the process of ideation—more precisely in the creation and

assessment of ideas—must contribute significantly to increase the number, the

quality and the relevance of received ideas. Due to the constraints of our case

study’s company and the time that is necessary to make a new process alive in a

large organisation, we could only validate this hypothesis on a small scale.

Therefore follow-up research projects should be launched in several companies,

primarily aiming at doing a quantitative assessment of the effects due to the

integration of different experts in the ideation process.

In addition, we believe that these effects play a significant role for the

sustainability of the innovations based on the generated ideas, because these

ideas have been evaluated and developed by diverse stakeholders involved in

several different phases of the ideation process and subsequently in the

downstream phases of the entire innovation process. Because of their

Perspectives

179

experiences and different perspectives, the different domain experts can help to

ensure that the ideas and their implementations meet the criteria best that are

decisive for market success. This assumption leads directly to open innovation,

one of the major topics of the current innovation research that is based on the

active involvement of external stakeholders in the internal organisation of the

company to make them participate in the creation and evaluation of ideas.

These external stakeholders include customers, suppliers, partners from

research and development, etc. Even competitors and their customers can be

interesting sources of new ideas.

With our research work we partly showed how this open innovation could be

realised in a well-established sector like the automotive industry. But final

results about the practical instruments for the stakeholder integration and

regarding the value of adding different internal and external expertise into the

ideation process are still missing.

For the application of the open innovation paradigm it is necessary to find the

specific measures and tools to integrate all internal and external stakeholders

into the ideation process without endangering the competitiveness and

confidentiality. This offers another possibility for additional research.

Furthermore, it could be interesting to investigate which added value for the

company can be achieved with this stakeholder integration, and which measures

are needed to make these stakeholders perform better in the ideation process.

These subjects—stakeholder integration and open innovation—propose a wide

range of further research and studies.

Evaluation of the Long-term Impact of Ideas on the Innovation Success

The ideation reference process model ends with the transfer of promising ideas

to the NPD. Here the main question still remains: Which innovation success

will these ideas actually have? Which products or services have been realised

based on these ideas? Are they commercially successful on the market?

These questions can only be answered after a certain period of time. The

evaluation of this success is—compared with the already described difficult

evaluation of the entire ideation process and the ideas during the process—

more straightforward because objective financials and innovation controlling

are applicable here. Hauschildt and Salomo present an overview of practical

key indicators, which will help to rate the success of innovations [HAU2011].

These criteria are categorised according to the effects they measure (see Figure

8-1). Generally, the innovation success can be evaluated by its economic,

technical or other—system-related or individual—characteristics.

Chapter 8

180

Dimensions of

Innovation Success

Economic Effects Technical Effects Other Effects

Direct

Effects

Indirect

EffectsDirect

Effects

Indirect

Effects

System-

related

Effects

Individual

Effects

Growth in

Sales

Sales

Decrease of

CompetitorsObtaining

Subsidies

Increase in

Profit /

Marginal

Income

Cost Reduction

Determined

trough Specific

Measured

Values Cost Increase

Decrease of

Competitors

Learning

Success

Experience,

Know-how

Transfer

Effects,

Spin-offs

Advertising

Effects

Protection

Effects

Awareness of

weaknesses

Environmental

Effects

Social

Effects

Autonomy

Effects

Scientific

Acceptance

Individual

Fulfilment

Overall Success

Economic Benefit Technical Benefit Other Benefit

Figure 8-1: Criteria for the Evaluation of Innovation Success [HAU2011]

The direct economic success can be measured by profit and marginal income.

Here it is important to define the time period covered by the income

calculation. It has to be discussed how development costs have to evaluated and

which inherent and eminent increase of know-how has been achieved without

necessarily leading to tangible developments. The indirect economic success is

related to its effect on the competition, like sales decrease (caused by patents)

or cost increases (caused by licensing) of competitors. Direct and indirect

economic effects are summarised as the “economic benefit” of the company.

The same approach is applicable for the determination of the “technical

benefit”, which is also composed of direct and indirect technical effects. Direct

technical success has to be evaluated by specific project-related assessment

criteria. Indirect effects of the technical success are for example learning

effects, advertising effects, protection effects etc. Especially in the case of

radical innovation these indirect technical effects can be more important than

the direct technical effects.

Other dimensions of innovation success are caused by social effects on the

individual and on the organisation. For example, for the inventor the scientific

acceptance plays a major role or her or his personal fulfilment. On a company-

level, the improvement of environmental conditions through the innovation is

an example for a social and system-related effect.

Perspectives

181

To assess all the direct and indirect economic, ecologic and social effects, the

total benefits will be determined as the “overall success”. This evaluation of the

long-term success of innovations could provide useful insights concerning the

efficiency and effectiveness of the entire innovation process and the

contribution of the systematic approach right from the start. Thus, another

perspective resulting from our research work is the analysis of this long-term

impact of ideation on innovation success.

Financing Ideation

Financing the ideation methods and tools is another issue that has to be

investigated in future. Up to now, we have found that only very little

information has been published about financing schemes supporting explicitly

ideation activities as we described in our ideation reference process model. We

did not deal with this issue in this thesis.

183

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213

Appendix

215

A1 – Interview Guideline for Expert Interviews

1. Introduction

1.1 Welcome and interviewer introduces himself shortly.

1.2 Explain the term “ideation”: Ideation denotes the procedure of idea

generation and selection for innovations of products, services or business

models with commercialisation potential on the market.

1.3 Introduce the research question: How is it possible to create a structured

approach which explains ideation as the core task of the fuzzy front-end,

and to implement this process in a company’s environment such that it

successfully facilitates innovation management in practice?

1.4 Define research objectives:

Creation of a generic ideation process model.

Definition of indicators and assessment criteria to monitor ideas

during the process and rate their commercial success.

2. Personal Information about the Interviewee

2.1 Company profile (industry sector, size, products, management ratios,

competitors, etc.)

2.2 Expert’s position and background (education, department affiliation,

duration of employment, etc.)

2.3 Expert’s function within the organisation (job description, main

responsibilities, etc.)

A1 - Interview Guideline for Expert Interviews

216

3. Ideation Process

<Remark for interviewer: You can find the core subjects of the answers in this

section in the following lists of key words. Please tick off mentioned issues. If

aspect is not included in the answer of the expert, please inquire. See the list of

key words as impulses / inspiration for the expert. Please complete lists with

new aspects mentioned by the expert.>

3.1 Which internal and external sources are especially suitable for ideation?

Internal sources:

Executives

Management

Employees of all departments

Sales representatives

Think tank

External employees

_________________________________________________________

External sources:

Customers

Competitors

Science

Society

Government

Suppliers

_________________________________________________________

3.2 Which sources are the most important for your company?

3.3 In your opinion, what kind of organisational culture supports the

generation of ideas?

3.4 What are the major principles that characterise your company culture?

3.5 Do structured processes play a major role in your company culture?

3.6 Does an ideation process exist in your company? How does your company

structure the very beginning of the innovation process? What are the steps

that your company goes through before a product is actually designed?

Length of this? People and functions involved? Decisions made or not

made? Formality of decisions?


217

3.7 What kind of idea generation methods does your company use?

3.8 What kind of idea generation tools (creativity techniques) does your

company use for which specific purpose? Which tools are the most

important?

Brainstorming

Brainwriting

Mind Mapping

Cashier Method

Brainwall

World Café

Ice Breaker

Morphological Combinations

Vision Building

Concept Competition

Six Thinking Hats

Walt Disney Method

_________________________________________________________

3.9 What kind of indicators and assessment criteria does your company use to

measure the success of ideas and to support the selection of ideas? How

would you define “success”?

3.10 In your opinion, what are possible indicators and assessment criteria for

the evaluation of ideas?

Advanced performance (basic input / expense)

Budget requirements

Competitive environment

Conformity with technology trends

Corporate risk

Exclusiveness

Level of innovation / novelty degree

Market area /technology field

Market Reach

Need for the technical solution

Required know-how


218

Required resources / capacities

Required workforce

Speed of innovation

Sustainability of technical solution

Technical feasibility

_________________________________________________________

3.11 Are there any lessons learned from using an ideation process in your

company?

3.12 Are there any problems with the ideation process at your company?

Reasons? Solutions? Current practices?

4. Success Factors of the Ideation Process

<Remark for interviewer: Please confront the expert first with the following

open-ended question. Do not intervene. Let the expert “brainstorm”.>

4.1 According to your experience and/or considerations, what are key success

factors of an ideation process?

<Remark for interviewer: After the expert finished her/his statement, confront

her/him with the following list of success factors.>

4.2 In the following I will present to you a list of aspects that may influence

the success of an ideation process. Please indicate your (dis)agreement

with each of the aspects mentioned there.


Relevant? Yes No

Involvement of a broad mass of employees

Relevant? Yes No

Resources for ideation activities in terms of time and budget

Relevant? Yes No

Analysis of market situation

Relevant? Yes No

Leaders of ideation activities

Relevant? Yes No


219

Integration of internal and external stakeholders in the ideation process

Relevant? Yes No

Interdisciplinary ideation teams

Relevant? Yes No

Promoters of ideas

Relevant? Yes No

Mentors of idea promoters

Relevant? Yes No

Creativity

Relevant? Yes No

Idea communication and (internal) idea marketing

Relevant? Yes No

Systematic and transparent pursuit of ideas

Relevant? Yes No

Practical indicators to monitor and select ideas

Relevant? Yes No

Rewarding schemes

Relevant? Yes No

4.3 What kind of roles, responsibilities, and interfaces are needed for the

ideation process?

4.4 Which further processes, methods and systems are connected to the

ideation process (decision-making process, communication paths, declined

ideas, etc.)?

5. Final Issues

5.1 From your point of view, are there any further, not yet discussed aspects,

which are important with respect to successful idea generation? Which

ones?

5.2 Are there any suggestions you would like to make to improve the

interview?

Thank you very much for your time and your cooperation.

221

A2 - Tools for the Implementation of the KSPG Ideation Process

Decision Support Template


222


223


224

Innovation Board Meeting Protocol


225


Ideation Tool Brainstorming

What it does Generate a large number of ideas for the solution of a problem

Enhance creativity in the ideas

Basic rules

Focus on quantity. The greater the number of ideas generated, the

greater the chance of producing a radical and effective solution.

Withhold criticism. By suspending judgment, participants will feel

free to generate unusual ideas.

Welcome unusual ideas. New ways of thinking may provide better

solutions.

Combine and improve ideas. "1+1=3": Good ideas may be combined

to form a single better good idea

Session conduct

The facilitator leads the brainstorming session and ensures that

ground rules are followed.

The steps in a typical session are:

Warm-up session to expose novice participants to the criticism-

free environment

Facilitator: presentation of the problem

Participants: suggestion of ideas

When time is up:

organisation of the ideas based on the topic goal

Ideas are debated and categorized

Review to ensure that everyone understands the ideas

Preparation

Set the problem

The problem must be clear, not too big, and captured in a specific

question e.g "What service for train users is not available now, but

needed?"

If the problem is too big, break it into smaller components / questions

Create a background memo

The background memo is the invitation and informational letter for

the participants, containing the session name, problem (in the form of

a question), time, date, and place

The memo is sent to the participants well in advance, so that they can

think about the problem beforehand

Select participants

A group of 10 or fewer members is generally more productive

Create a list of lead questions

Stimulating questions if creativity decreases during the session


226

Limitations

Researches on real efficiency have been carried out

Result: Individual ideation more efficient than brainstorming, in

terms of quantity and quality

Causes of efficiency low score:

distraction

social loafing

evaluation apprehension

production blocking

Nevertheless, these problems are not specific to brainstorming, but to

group ideation in general.

Ideation Tool Brainwriting

What it does Generate a large number of ideas for the solution of a problem

Enhance efficiency in ideation due to higher quality

Basic rules

Ground rules

Defer judgment no bad ideas

Quantity more is better (don’t worry about quality)

Freewheel wild ideas are OK

Piggyback ideas play off ideas of others

Write neatly & clearly ideas fully understood

Session conduct

The general process is divided in two major steps:

All ideas are recorded by the individual who thought of them.

They are then passed on to the next person who uses them as a

trigger for their own ideas.

This process can be implemented in several varieties

Brainwriting Pool

Brainwriting 6-3-5

Idea Card Method

Brainwriting Game

Constrained Brainwriting

Varying the level of constraint

Preparation

Set the problem



needed?"




227






Select participants




Limitations


Result: Individual ideation more efficient than brainwriting, in terms

of quantity and quality


distraction

social loafing


production blocking

Nevertheless, these problems are not specific to brainstorming, but to

group ideation in general.

Brainwriting Pool

Each participant gets a form. Problem is written on form.

5 – 8 in group.

Each person writes three ideas at top and puts sheet in centre of table.

Participants take new sheet out of centre pile and add to it.

No rounds. Put sheets back and get new sheets at own pace.

Process completed at end of pre-determined time (e.g. 30 min).

Sort ideas.

6-3-5 Method

6-3-5 means: 6 pers. per group / 3 ideas per round / 5 minutes per

round.

Divide everyone into groups of about 6.

Each participant starts with a prewritten brainwriting form with the

problem at the top of the form.

First round: participants have 5 minutes to write 3 ideas.

End of each round: the form is passed to the person on the right.

Each person reads all the ideas and adds 3 new ideas, which can be:

completely new

variations of ideas already on the sheet

additional developments to ideas already on the sheet

The process is completed when each participant gets his own form

back, now filled up with many ideas.

The last step is to sort the ideas.


228

Idea Card Method

Each participant gets a stack of index cards or index card-size post-

its. Problem is written on visible board.

5 – 8 in group.

Each person writes one idea on card and places it on his right side.

When participant runs out of ideas, they pick card from pile on left

and try to add to it.

If they can’t, they shift it to the pile on the right and get another

card.

If they can add to the idea, they write it on a new card, attach the

two cards together, and move both cards to the pile on right.

Moderator keeps cards circulating.

Process completed at end of pre-determined time (e.g. 30 min).

Ideation Tool Mind Mapping

What it does

Enhance creativity by graphically organising ideas

Encourage non-linear thinking

Gets rid of the vision of ideas on an individual level

Basic rules

Focus on quantity. Just as in the Brainstorm, the greater the number

of ideas generated, the greater the chance of producing a radical and

effective solution.

Withhold criticism. By suspending judgment, participants will feel

free to generate unusual ideas.

Emphasise graphical links. By organising your brainstorm

graphically you might find unusual and innovative ways to tackle

certain problems

The linking of ideas provides new opportunities in the field of

indirect ideation.

Session conduct

The facilitator leads the mind mapping session by setting a resolution

on which ideas will relate to…

The resolution can be written, drawn, or both

Branches are drafted from this core statement while ideas are

generated

Ideas can also be written and/or drawn

Ideas will be added to an existing branch or a new branch/sub-branch

will be created

Branches can be linked with each other through common ideas

Preparation

Use a big screen or board giving you enough space to write and draw

Start by writing or drawing your resolution in the centre of the area

Work around this key resolution and add ideas, strategies, etc. around

it


229

Avoid working slowly, as judgment might compromise the quality of

the exercise

Limitations

Some people are not able to work with graphic representations

A linking of ideas enriches the field of ideation, but increases the

complexity of the workshop

Ideation Tool Cashier Method

What it does

Creates a subconscious level of ideation

Continuous ideation process

Try to get rid of all external factors polluting a free ideation

Basic rules

Very individual approach

Fully immerge into your brain’s creativity. In its radical application

the subject will immerge into unrestrained creativity by undermining

self-censorship.

Set aside social structures. As society structures the way people

think, groundbreaking ideas could be lost, as they might come from

an unstructured and free approach to ideation.

Record ideas and thoughts without aiming any usage. This method

should be used for pure uncensored ideation.

Session conduct

No Ideation workshop, rather a "get together" discussion afterwards

During the early morning hours, preferably before having any social

contact, each participant should take the time to reflect, while

recording these reflections onto a notebook

A time frame should be set (e.g. a week) before collecting the results

Preparation

Each participant is given

A time frame to run the activity

A notebook and a pen

Instructions on how (and possibly when) to use it

Limitations

Very individual method of ideation

Often unrealistic application

Necessity from the participants of quite unrestricted commitment

Ideation Tool Brainwall

What it does Visualises the sum of ideas

Offers space for physical connection (e.g. clustering)


230

Basic rules

Ground rules

Defer judgment no bad ideas

Quantity more is better (don’t worry about quality)

Freewheel wild ideas are OK

Piggyback ideas play off ideas of others

Write neatly & clearly ideas fully understood

Session conduct

Put ideas generated in a Brainstorming/Brainwriting session on the

wall

Do not work on wall instantly

Listen to impulses, then after a while of distraction get back on wall

Keep all the ideas up on a wall for a while so that they can

“percolate” with the involved people and perhaps spark additional

ideas, combinations or concepts

Cluster ideas

Enhance visualisation by illustrator

Preparation

Set the problem



needed?"








Select participants




Limitations


Result: Individual ideation more efficient than brainstorming /

brainwritting, in terms of quantity and quality


distraction

social loafing


production blocking

Nevertheless, these problems are not specific to brainstorming /

brainwritting, but to group ideation in general.


231

Ideation Tool World Café

What it does Share views in a convivial atmosphere

Merge perspectives

Basic rules

Generate ideas through a relaxed dialogue about a topic

Especially true for very heterogeneous teams

Helps the group to form bonds and share various perspectives on one

topic

Especially useful:

At the beginning of workshops, as introduction to a new theme

As a relaxed but effective form of knowledge sharing after a stage

of individual work

Session conduct

Set four people at small café style tables (drinks might be served)

Set up 3 progressive rounds of conversation (3x30 min)

Predefined questions are discussed

Other small groups explore similar questions at nearby tables

Discussions are documented via writing or drawing

After one round of conversation, one person remains at the table, the

others join other groups and take ideas, questions will be connected

and with new input.

Same procedure in the second and third round

Whole group conversation might be brought up at the end

Preparation

Prepare questions to be discussed

Print the questions / topics and dispose them on the tables

Install Idea Cards on the tables for writing or drawing

Limitations


Possible reduction of efficiency due to:

distraction

social loafing

Personal discussion

social/hierarchical inhibitions may hurdle free discussion

Ideation Tool Ice Breaker

What it does

Bring the audience/the participants closer to the subject

Set everyone on the same level of attention

Creates a productive and innovative environment for ideation


232

Allows people to free their mind as the facilitator will catch the

participant’s unrestricted attention

Basic rules

Actively change the mindset of the audience before starting a

workshop / discussion.

Get the audience in a state of excitement that draws their attention.

Get the people on a same emotional level to reduce human distances.

Focus on the quality and simplicity of the ice-breaker: Determining

which ice to break will determine the success of this tool.

Bring participants closer: Set aside cultural, hierarchical or

professional differences in order to create a perfect working

environment.

Emphasise interdependencies between the participants: This will

allow gaining the participants trust and commitment.

It will need to create a common platform of thinking: Emphasise the

feeling that every participant is a vital element to the group.

By emphasising this necessity, criticism will be undermined and

eventually it will allow participants to free their mind.

Session conduct

Takes place as an introduction to a workshop / discussion /

presentation

The Ice Breaker can work through:

Laughter, amusement

Surprise, shock

Raised curiosity

It can be triggered by different means, like:

Visual (mood boards, etc.)

Verbal (e.g. presentation speech, etc.)

Intellectual (content of a message, structure of a thinking process,

etc.)

The facilitator leads the session and manages the scope of the

exercise.

The steps in a typical session are:

Facilitator suggests a topic which could “break the ice”

Participants will all have the chance to answer to the suggested

topic

The session ends when each participant made a statement on the

suggested topic

As the session ends the facilitator can conclude by connecting

people’s statements

Many techniques allow to implement this tool

Examples: The Human Web, True or False


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Preparation

Know you audience well, in order to:

avoid overachieving your effect

ensures that everybody is receptive

Make sure the ice breaker doesn't expand for a too long time. Switch

rapidly to main topic.

You can prepare other ice breakers spots to be used in the middle of

a session

Suggest a topic, a question, etc.

The topic can also be provocative, to raise involvement

This topic must take into consideration the participants profile: every

participant must be able to have an opinion on the topic

Limitations

It can be difficult to find the right balance for your desired effect

It can be hard to anticipate the reaction of the audience

Mostly limited to introductory session

The Human Web

Every participant must say a few words about himself / herself

A ball circulates among the participants, only the one having the ball

is allowed to speak

Each participant hands the ball to a new participant when he finished

introducing himself

When receiving the ball, each participant must start his introduction

by quoting the last participant's speech, and linking the quote to his

own presentation

The game forces the participants to build links between them, making

them closer

True of False

Every participant must say a few words about himself / herself

Inside his presentation, each participant must insert a false statement

about him / her, without telling the audience which one it is

After a participant has spoken, the audience must get together find

out which statement was false

The game helps the participants to really listen to what has been said,

and take part in a group discussion

Ideation Tool Morphological Combinations

What it does

The system allows reducing the complexity of a problem.

It does it not by reducing the number of variables involved, but by

reducing the number of possible solutions through the elimination of

the illogical solution combinations in a grid box.

Basic rules Do brain storming regarding the parameters, the attributes etc.

Do not judge or evaluate them


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Do not discard any idea

Session conduct

Session conduct

Define parameters, attributes, options, etc.

Populate the matrix with possible solutions

Choose the best fitting solution per parameter

Connect them together See example on the right

Preparation

Prepare matrix

Think about the attributes in advance

Define the team working on it

Limitations Time costing

Ideation Tool Vision Building

What it does

Sets a common goal in a more or less distant future and builds the

steps to be taken backwards from the set vision to the present

Start from the target to finally reach the current situation

Basic rules

Focus on visionary ideas. The ideal vision seems unrealistic today

and describes a drastic change in present behaviour and technologies.

Think backwards. On the same principle as the child game "find the

right path to the treasure", you gain efficiency if you start from the

end.

Session conduct

The facilitator leads the session by determining individually or with

the participants the vision to set

Participants will create a backwards time framework which they can

use to determine key steps in the development of the vision

Necessary cornerstones will be defined backwards, starting from the

vision

Finally the facilitator will summarize the cornerstones and the

mentioned drastic and unconventional ideas

Preparation The vision must be far enough in the future for the participants to

disconnect from the current situation

Limitations Participants must agree on a vision before thinking backwards

Capacity to project oneself far enough into the future


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Ideation Tool Concept Competition

What it does

Creates a competition between two teams working on the same topic

Simulates reality of company competition

Can be a teambuilding experience as well

Can be done “online” in a workshop session as well as “offline”

during an extended duration

Can be done in-house by internal company teams as well as

externally by e.g. university teams assigned by the company

Basic rules

Transparency

like in every game the rules and criteria must be clear and

transparent

Dimension

depending on layout give assignments that can be done within the

time budget

Target/Goal

set clear goals concerning the result in terms of quality, quantity

and form

Save

use the resources efficiently, consider alternative methods in

advance

Session conduct

Determine teams

Give a clear assignment including goals and big picture

Provide background information where necessary

Guide where necessary, give freedom to go and try new ways

Put proposals in a physical state e.g. by rapid prototyping methods

Preparation

Gather relevant background information (e.g. state of the art,

benchmarks, etc.)

Determine a clear timeframe and run a reality check with the

assignment against this frame

Look for good coaches and experts inside and outside of the

company to support efforts

Determine criteria for selection and assessment of solutions

Ensure commitment of support for background as well as solutions in

the divisions

Limitations Participants must agree on a vision before thinking backwards

Capacity to project oneself far enough into the future


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Ideation Tool Six Thinking Hats

What it does

Analyses a potential innovation

Fosters full-spectrum thinking for a better analysis

Provides individual assessment

Shifts emphasis away from judgmental thinking

Basic rules

The six colours: White, Blue, Black, Yellow, Green and Red.

Each colour represents a mode of thinking and is a direction to think

White Hat:

Information hat

Facts and figures

Great to identify situation or gap

“Let’s look at the source of our data…”

Blue Hat:

Overview or process control hat

Deals with “Thinking about the subject”

Great to get group

“I feel we should do some more green hat thinking...”

Black Hat:

Critical viewpoint

Pessimistic

Useful to evaluate risk

"It won't work because...”

Yellow Hat:

Optimist’s viewpoint

Help visualise successful scenario

Useful to develop implementation plan, see where a solution will

take you

“Great idea, we can… we will…”

Green Hat:

Creativity

Assumes that anything works

Great to generate new ideas

“Yeah, imagine that…”

Red Hat:

Intuition, feelings, emotional

What if you were a gut feel type of person

Great to get everybody’s opinion


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"This doesn’t smell good...” or “I really like the way this

looks…”

Participants take time to think about the innovation while wearing

each hat.

When done in a group everyone must wear the same colour hat at the

same time.

Session conduct

The workshop can be individual, or participants can be divided into

groups of 5-6 people

The facilitator presents the idea to be assessed

Each group/participant picks one hat colour for the round

Each group/participant gathers around the flipchart corresponding to

its hat

Duration of a round must be defined (e.g. 20 min)

During the round, each group / participant analysis the submitted

idea at the light of their hat. Results are written on the flipchart

At the end of the round, each group / participant changes to another

flipchart and a new round starts

At the end of the session, the facilitator gathers all flipcharts and the

group agrees on a common synthesis

Limitations

Some participants can be passive in the rounds which don't match

their preferences, and start being active only when it reflects their

mind

Group members may feel overwhelmed with too much data being

generated

Ideation Tool Walt Disney Method

What it does

Lead creative processes to a success

The "Imagineering" process: to enable creative processes, to keep

them up to the right pace and to execute them to finally reach

success, you need people with different mindsets and sensibilities

Basic rules

„If you can dream it, you can do it“ (W. Disney)

Three different roles must be put in place:

Dreaming

Realising

Criticising

Session conduct

2 iterations, 10 minutes each step

20 minutes preparation of debrief

Step 1:

The group is going to the “Dreaming-table”

Generate some ideas / visions


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You do not have to be realistic, you must not restrict yourself

Step 2:

The group is going to the “Realising-table”

Ask “how will we realize this” (NOT “if” it is possible)

Do not look for constraints like budget, time etc.

Step 3:

With the results from step 1 & 2 in mind: Go to the “Criticism-

table”

Look for constructive criticism

Check for roadblocks, potential problems, etc.

Step 4:

Based on the results from the first iteration start the whole cycle

again

“with the given constraints, create a new vision / create new ideas

how the solution could look like

how can you do it

what are the constraints, etc.”

Stop when there is only minor new criticism

Preparation

Have three tables ready for group discussion

The group sits together around one table

The problem is submitted to the group

The first task is "dreaming" the solution

Limitations

Simplified version of the "Six Thinking Hats" method

Some people might find it difficult to focus their mindset in one

direction on command

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Résumé

241

Processus d’idéation de référence pour la phase amont de l’innovation

1 Motivation

L’obligation d’innover de plus en plus rapidement force les entreprises à

adopter une approche systémique et efficace à la création d’innovations. Ces

innovations concernent à la fois les produits, les services, et les modèles

d’affaires, ainsi que les organisations et processus associés.

Le processus de la gestion de l’innovation comporte plusieurs étapes succinctes

qui mènent de l’idée à sa commercialisation. Bien que la phase de création

d’idées en fait la partie essentielle, elle est de loin la moins tangible et

structurée. Par conséquence, sa nature créative, dynamique, incertaine et

parfois ambigüe la rende difficile à intégrer dans les paysages des processus

bien définis et structurés des entreprises occidentales modernes. Pourtant, le

challenge principal qui se pose au management est d’arriver à capitaliser au

maximum le potentiel de création et réalisation d’idées de toute l’organisation

pour pouvoir nourrir « la machinerie de l’innovation ».

2 Problématique

De nombreux travaux des équipes membres des associations CIRP, Design

Society, et EMIRAcle sur la conception intégrée de produits et de services ont

démontré l’importance de la phase amont du processus de développement

[RIE2009b], [DRA2009], [TIC1998], [TIC2000]. C’est bien là où la complexité

et le coût de l’implémentation d’une idée ou d’un concept sont déterminés. La

phase « floue » de naissance et création des idées doit être aperçue comme la

phase la plus en amont de tous les processus dans une entreprise : toute

conception commence par la naissance et la concrétisation incrémentielle et

évolutionnaire d’une ou plusieurs idées. L’application du principe de

l’intégration des acteurs du cycle de vie aussi pendant cette phase, peu voire


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pas pratiqué dans les organisations classiques, nous semble une nécessité

évidente et est notre préoccupation principale depuis le début de nos travaux de

recherche dans ce domaine.

D’un point de vue plus large, les opportunités clés qui se présentent au

management et aux équipes sont les suivantes :

faciliter l’impulsion d’idées,

impliquer et intégrer les acteurs sources d’idées à l’intérieur et à l’extérieur

de l’organisation,

institutionnaliser l’idéation par un processus vécu par l’organisation

entière,

évaluer les idées selon de critères économiques, écologiques, et sociétaux,

mettre en fonctionnement une culture organisationnelle et une stratégie qui

facilitent la création d’idées.

L’objectif de nos travaux de recherché est de trouver une démarche orientée

processus pour aider les entreprises de grande et moyen taille d’exploiter ces

opportunités au mieux afin de réussir le défi d’augmenter la quantité et qualité

d’idées qui se transforment en innovations [STE1997], [DAN2007].

3 Contexte

Nous avons mené cette recherche en collaboration très étroite avec l’industrie,

et plus particulièrement avec l’entreprise allemande KSPG AG, la société mère

du secteur automobile du groupe Rheinmetall AG. En ligne avec sa stratégie, le

groupe dispose de trois divisions: pièces mécaniques, mécatronique et services

pour le moteur. Il emploie quelques 11.500 personnes dans ses sites de

production en Europe, Amérique du Nord, Amérique du Sud et de la Chine.

Nous considérons dans le secteur automobile le terrain idéal pour nos

recherches car ce secteur est mondialement reconnu comme le plus exigeant par

rapport à la nécessité et la difficulté d’innover de manière à la fois rapide et

solide. Le marché est caractérisé par des utilisateurs de plus en plus exigeants,

des technologies hautement pointues, des législations de plus en plus strictes,

des besoins de sécurité fortement croissants, des marges des produits fortement

décroissants. De plus, les entreprises du secteur automobile font un exemple

type des organisations pilotées par les processus minutieusement bien définis et

structurés.

Au départ de nos travaux, les plus hauts responsables de la R&D déploraient

« la sous-exploitation drastique du potentiel de créativité de leurs employés, et


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un manque de nouvelles bonnes idées pour les produits ». Notre analyse

révélait effectivement que la plupart des idées pour les produits existants

avaient été apportées par les ingénieurs mêmes du produit. En outre, il n’y avait

aucune démarche active pour faire que les employés réfléchissent aux

innovations et les inciter à contribuer à l’innovation avec leurs propres idées

[NEU2011a].

Cette situation, pourtant bien typique pour le secteur selon l’étude « Car

Innovation 2015 » [DAN2007], représente une menace importante de

stagnation des idées. C’est pourquoi, le management de KSPG avait lancé un

projet stratégique pour la création et l’implémentation d’un processus

d’idéation, commençant avec nos travaux.

Les fabricants d’automobiles ont clairement déclaré l’innovation de produits,

services, et modèles d’affaires comme sujet clé pour augmenter leur

compétitivité et se différentier sur le long terme [ILI2009]. Par conséquence, ils

sont constamment en train de lancer des nouvelles initiatives de recherche et

développement avancé afin de pouvoir innover de plus en plus vite, tout en

respectant les contraintes budgétaires, législatives, qualitatives, etc., celles-ci

eux-mêmes devenant de plus en plus nombreuses et strictes.

Vu que 90% des innovations dans l’automobile concernent le domaine

électrique/électronique et logiciel, et que le marché demande de nouveaux

services plus ou moins directement associés à l’automobile, ces initiatives

doivent être portées par des équipes hautement pluridisciplinaires, ce qui pose

de nombreux nouveaux défis aux organisations [GER2011], [GER2012a],

[GER2012b], ainsi qu’aux outils de gestion de connaissances et d’informations

[KIR2003]. Ceci a amené les fabricants à transférer une grande partie de

responsabilité du développement des sous-systèmes aux sous-traitants, ceux-ci

étant plus agiles et efficaces dans l’application de leurs compétences pointues

en général. Or, ce transfert implique aussi la transmission directe de la pression

sur la force d’innovation, le prix, la réactivité aux besoins du marché, etc. vers

les sous-traitants. Ces derniers sont donc amenés non seulement à augmenter

leurs investissements en recherche et développement, mais également à adapter

leurs organisations et processus à cette situation dans laquelle les fabricants

agissent comme clients très exigeants et intégrateurs des systèmes complets

[KUR2004]. Ils sont effectivement censés d’anticiper et influencer les

tendances et innovations eux-mêmes, plutôt que d’être pilotés par les

fabricants.

Dans ce contexte hautement compétitif, les fabricants ainsi que les sous-

traitants automobiles sont obligés de gérer l’innovation de manière proactive

plutôt que réactive [BAR2008]. Pendant très longtemps dans ce secteur, la

gestion de l’innovation s’est limitée à la création, évaluation, et au brevetage

des idées pour des solutions techniques répondant à des problèmes connus.


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Même aujourd’hui, la performance en innovation d’une entreprise automobile

est toujours mesurée au nombre des brevets déposés par cette entreprise

annuellement. Or, cette mesure ne prend pas en compte le succès de

l’implémentation de toutes ces inventions sur le marché par rapport aux

facteurs clés du temps (conception, réalisation et fabrication, introduction sur le

marché, durée de vie, etc.), du coût (développement, coût global de possession

– TCO, etc.), de l’impact sur l’environnement (impact écologique, économique,

social), et autres. Par conséquence, elle n’est pas la bonne mesure pour évaluer

la performance d’innovation effective.

Pour faire face à ces nombreux nouveaux défis, les entreprises du secteur

automobile ont mis en place des processus opérationnels hautement

interconnectés. Sur cette base, elles sont en train d’adopter des nouvelles

formes de gestion de l’innovation [ILI2010b]. L’intégration systématique des

nombreux acteurs qui interviennent tout au long du cycle de vie du produit dans

les processus de l’innovation est très prometteuse [NEU2011d]. L’enquête

menée par Ili et al. a démontré que l’adoption de l’innovation ouverte par

l’industrie automobile sera un facteur hautement compétitif dans les dix

prochaines années [ILI2010a]. Or, l’une des plus grandes difficultés du

processus de gestion de l’innovation reste l’organisation de la phase floue

amont (« fuzzy front-end »), en particulier le développement d’un processus

pour la génération d’idées [NEU2011a].

4 Positionnement de la problématique

4.1 La gestion de l’innovation

La figure 1 montre notre démarche. Dans un premier temps, nous avons

investigué la relation qui existe entre l’innovation, la gestion de l’innovation, et

les idées. Dans la littérature il y a de nombreuses définitions du terme

innovation, suivant les différents points de vue (économique, technique, etc.).

Pourtant, à la clé de toutes ces définitions se trouve le fait qu’il y ait une idée à

l’origine de toute innovation. Une idée ou plusieurs qui puissent être

transformées en produit et/ou service qui apporte(nt) de la valeur à un marché

cible. La vue économique ajoute à cela le succès économique qui porte sur la

valeur qui puisse être vendue. Selon l’une des études européennes les plus

importantes [ENG2010], la gestion de l’innovation est la capacité de gérer les

idées pour de nouveaux produits et services, processus, méthodes de

production, organisations, ou d’améliorations élémentaires de modèles

d’affaires, y compris leur réalisation avec succès. Le succès se définit dans le

contexte économique par des gains durables et de la croissance profitable.


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Part II:

Creation

of an

Ideation Process

Part IV: Global Conclusion

Part I: State of the Art

IdeationInnovation Management

Part III:

Implementation

of the

Ideation Process

at KSPG

Introduction


Company-specific Ideation Process

Figure 1 : La démarche globale de recherche pour l’idéation

Selon [SCH2005] le succès d’une innovation peut se mesurer en plusieurs

dimensions, celles-ci permettant de distinguer les différents types d’innovation

[HAU2011] :

1) Dimension du contenu : quelle est la nouveauté de l’innovation ?

2) Dimension de subjectivité : pour qui l’innovation est nouvelle ?

3) Dimension de processus : où sont le début et la fin de l’innovation ?

4) Dimension normative : est-ce que la nouveauté implique le succès ?

Grâce à ces définitions, il est possible de classifier les idées par rapport aux

types d’innovation qu’elles déclencheront :

L’innovation incrémentielle versus l’innovation radicale,

L’innovation d’un produit, service, ou modèle d’affaires,

etc.

Dans le contexte de notre projet de recherche, nous nous intéressons plus

particulièrement à la dimension du processus. Chaque innovation est le résultat

de nombreuses activités liées par leur contenu [VAH1999], celles-ci peuvent se

dérouler en séquence et/ou en parallèle, et elles peuvent également être répétées

si c’est nécessaire [HAU2011]. Elles couvrent toutes les phases dès la


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naissance d’idée jusqu’à sa réalisation et son usage. Dans la littérature, il n’y

pas de consensus sur le nombre et la définition de ces différentes phases

[THO1980], [KLE1996] and [BRE2007].

Le modèle proposé par Thom [THO1980] est particulièrement intéressant pour

nous car il met l’idée au centre de ses investigations, et définit des phases

principales du processus d’innovation autour de cette idée (tableau 1).

Stages of the innovation process

Main stages

1. Idea Generation 2. Idea Acceptance 3. Idea Realisation

Specification of the Main Stages

1.1 Determination of

search field

2.1 Testing ideas 3.1 Actual realisation of the

new idea

1.2 Finding ideas 2.2 Creation of

realisation plans

3.2 Sale of the new idea

to the addressee

1.3 Idea suggestion 2.3 Decision to realise a plan 3.3 Acceptance control

Tableau 1 : Le modèle du processus de l’innovation selon Thom

([THO1980] et [BRE2007])

Un modèle beaucoup plus récent et très souvent cité est celui publié par Hansen

et Birkinshaw [HAN2007]. Alors qu’il est en parfait accord avec le modèle de

Thom, il étend ce dernier au-delà de la réalisation d’idée jusqu’à sa

capitalisation, ainsi donnant la notion de création de valeur à l’évolution d’une

idée. Par conséquence, les créateurs appellent leur modèle « la chaine de valeur

d’idées » (Idea Value Chain).

La figure 2 montre cette chaine de valeur d’idées, composée de trois phases

principales: la génération, la conversion, et la diffusion d’idées.

IDEA GENERATION

In-HouseCross-

PollinationExternal

CONVERSION


DIFFUSION

Internal

Spread

External

Spread

Figure 2 : La chaine de valeur d’idées [HAN2007]

Les idées peuvent être générées dans (« in-house ») ou en dehors de

l’organisation (« external »); la « cross-pollinisation » vise à faire collaborer les

différentes unités et divisions pour intégrer et valoriser leur connaissance.


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L’étape de conversion comprend la sélection et le développement d’idées. La

sélection signifie l’analyse d’idées et l’initiation de leur financement. L’étape

du développement transforme les idées sélectionnées pour un financement en

produit. L’étape de diffusion sert à diffuser les idées à travers l’organisation

pour qu’elles puissent être valorisées.

Des indicateurs doivent être spécifiés pour mesurer la performance de ces

étapes succinctes. Ceci est indispensable car « la capacité d’une entreprise à

innover n’est aussi bonne que le lien le plus faible de sa chaine de valeur

d’innovation » [HAN2007]. Tout lien faible non-identifié et non-remédié peut

casser cette chaine et ainsi nuire à la performance d’innovation de l’entreprise.

Ce modèle de chaine de valeur permet de formuler des recommandations pour

des actions pratiques d’amélioration, comme par exemple:

Remédier aux faiblesses en génération d’idées, notamment par la

construction des réseaux externes et/ou inter-unités.

Remédier aux faiblesses en conversion d’idées par le financement inter-

unités et la création des « havres protectrices ».

Faciliter la diffusion d’idées par des « évangélistes d’idées ».

Hansen et Birkinshaw soulignent qu’il n’y avait pas de solution unique pour

aider les entreprises à améliorer la performance de leur chaine de valeur

d’idées, et que l’imitation des meilleures pratiques n’était pas le bon chemin à

prendre. Chaque entreprise a des défis d’innovation particuliers, et les pratiques

qui sont les meilleures dans une entreprise peuvent être les plus mauvaises dans

une autre. Par conséquence, le management doit avoir un regard sur l’intégralité

de la chaine de valeur d’idées dans leur entreprise pour pouvoir identifier leurs

points faibles spécifiques et ainsi adapter les meilleures pratiques à leurs

besoins [AMM2008].

Le modèle de chaine de valeur d’idées permet donc de diagnostiquer, évaluer,

et contrôler la performance d’innovation. Si nous nous intéressons en

particulier à ce modèle, il faut bien prendre en compte que dans une entreprise

donnée, cette chaine est embarquée dans un contexte plus large qui l’influence.

Dans [ENG2010], les auteurs proposent un modèle cohérent et universel ayant

servi de ligne directrice pour analyser et évaluer les processus d’innovation

dans plus que 1.500 entreprises de petite ou moyenne taille (PMEs) en Europe.

Ce modèle représente l’innovation en maison avec plusieurs étages construites

sur la base des facteurs facilitant l’innovation, et s’appelle “A.T. Kearney

House of Innovation”, d’après l’entreprise de conseil en management mondiale

qui l’a commercialisé (figure 3).


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Enabler, e.g. Human Resource Management,

Knowledge Management, Project and Program

Management, Controlling and IT

Inno-

vation

Strategy

Product/

Process

Development

Idea

Management

Launch/

Continuous

Improvement

Innovation

Organisation

and Culture

Innovation Life-Cycle

Management

Figure 3 : La « maison de l’innovation » d’après A.T. Kearney [ENG2010]

Nous avons investigué tous les éléments constructifs de cette maison en

[RIE2011]. Tout au long de notre parcours de recherche, ce modèle nous a bien

servi pour nous rappeler des différents facteurs clés à prendre en compte lors de

la conception d’un processus de référence pour la création d’idées.

4.2 L’intégration des acteurs

Sur la base de nombreux travaux sur la conception intégrée sur Grenoble et

plusieurs laboratoires membres d’EMIRAcle, nous avons identifié l’intégration

des acteurs d’expertises et de métiers différents dès les phases amont du

processus de développement de produit comme facteur clé pour le

développement durable [RIE2009b]. L’aspect de la durabilité se traduit par la

possibilité d’identifier et intégrer les différents points de vue d’experts sous

forme des besoins et contraintes au produit et son processus de développement

dès le début de la conception [SAU2010]. Ces besoins et contraintes de natures

économiques, écologiques, et sociales doivent être apportés au juste besoin

[BRI2000] et prises en compte dans la conception et l’architecture du

produit/système.

Pour notre recherche, nous projetons ce principe de l’intégration des acteurs

également sur le processus de gestion de l’innovation, et plus particulièrement


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sur la phase de création et évaluation d’idées. Ceci nous semble évident, étant

donné qu’il s’agit effectivement de la phase « racine » de tout processus de

développement de voir le cycle de vie du produit/système. Cette réflexion nous

amène à l’innovation ouverte, un concept moderne et récemment introduit par

Chesbrough [CHE2003] en 2003, et origine de « Coopetition » [BEN2000].

Elle joue également un rôle essentiel dans la théorie de la conception innovante

C-K (« Concept – Knowledge ») marquée par Hatchuel et Weil [HAT2003],

ainsi que dans son application à la création de la capacité d’idéation et

d’innovation dans une organisation [HAT2006].

Dans [NEU2011a] et [NEU2011c] nous avons mené une réflexion concernant

les différents « mondes » regroupant les groupes d’acteurs qui se ressemblent

par rapport aux trois principes sociaux proposés par [MER1997] dans le

contexte de la conception intégrée de produits : la logique d’action, l’échelle de

valeur, et la connaissance collective. Cette réflexion est nécessaire car il faut

trouver les bons moyens et outils pour pouvoir intégrer chaque monde d’acteurs

dans le processus d’innovation de manière efficace et durable [ELI2002],

[ROU2003], [STE2009]. Ceci implique de se poser les questions suivantes :

Qui sont les acteurs à impliquer dans la gestion d’innovation?

Quels sont leurs intérêts et leurs échelles de valeur?

Quels sont les rôles des acteurs, et comment s’évalue leur influence?

Quelles interactions, dépendances et/ou conflits existent entre les acteurs?

Quels sont les facteurs clés de succès pour les impliquer ?

Quels méthodes et outils doivent être appliqués pour faciliter l’intégration

des acteurs dans la gestion de l’innovation de manière efficace et durable?

Les acteurs internes de l’organisation – les employées pour la plupart –

représentent les sources d’idées les plus citées [STA1992], [BEL2004],

[ALA2003]. Or, nous nous intéressons aussi à l’implication des acteurs

externes dans le processus d’innovation, suivant le principe de l’innovation

ouverte.

4.3 L’idéation

L’idéation (« ideation » en anglais) signifie « le processus de génération des

idées créatives » [MAH2011]. Vue l’importance essentielle de ce terme dans le

contexte de notre recherche, nous l’avons redéfini de manière plus précise :

L’idéation signifie la procédure de la génération d’idées et la

sélection d’innovations de nouveaux produits, modèles d’affaires où

services ayant un potentiel commercial sur le marché.


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Cette définition exclut volontairement les idées pour l’amélioration des

processus de l’entreprise en se focalisant uniquement sur les idées basées sur

les innovations pour le marché. Ceci est très utile, car il permet de délimiter

notre domaine de recherche de celui qui s’adresse à la gestion des idées,

activité qui aujourd’hui s’adresse très souvent uniquement aux systèmes de

suggestions pour l’amélioration continue (Kaizen) [IMA1997], [KOS2011],

[BIS2008] et [THO2009]. Contrairement aux systèmes facilitant l’idéation en

notre sens, ces systèmes ont déjà une longue histoire en Europe, Amérique, et

Asie, et sont déjà bien établis, ainsi que les outils informatiques associés

[LLO1999]. En outre, le terme idéation tel que nous l’avons défini, a été utilisé

dans le même sens dans le contexte de la conception intégrée, et plus

particulièrement par « l’école américaine » avec le « Design Thinking »,

marquée notamment par le filiale essaimée de l’Université de Stanford, CA

IDEO [KEL2004], [BRO2008], [BRO2009].

Pour situer l’idéation dans le processus d’innovation, nous adoptons la vue

établie par Koen et al., dans laquelle le processus d’innovation se compose de

trois parties succinctes [KOE2001] :

1) la phase floue amont (« fuzzy front-end », FFE),

2) le processus de développement de nouveaux produits (« New Product

Development », NPD) et

3) la phase de commercialisation.

Le FFE est donc la somme de toutes les activités en amont du NPD, ce dernier

étant en général bien structuré, typiquement formalisé en points de décision

[KOE2002] et [COO2011]. NPD est aussi exhaustivement traité dans la

littérature. Une synthèse de référence est [ERN2002].

Le point de transition entre le FFE et le NPD est en général marqué par la

décision de la direction pour ou contre le projet, d’où ce point s’appelle souvent

le « money gate » (point de décision financière) [ZHA2001], [HER2007b].

Vu que l’idéation est par définition la toute première phase de ce processus

[BUL2008], et que la phase de FFE comporte toutes les phases avant la

transition d’un concept concret vers l’NPD, il devient possible de situer

l’idéation dans le modèle de Koen (figure 4).


251

Ideation

New Product Development (NPD) CommercialisationFuzzy Front End (FFE)

$

The entire Innovation Process

Figure 4 : Le processus de l’innovation d’après [KOE2002]

Pour pouvoir situer la fin de la phase d’idéation dans le FFE plus précisément,

nous avons choisi l’un des modèles du FFE les plus cités dans la littérature de

recherche en ingénierie de produits, celui de Khurana et Rosenthal [KHU1997]

(figure 5).

Phase Zero:

Product Concept

Phase One:

Feasibility and

Project Planning

Specification &

Design

Prototype Test &

Validate

Volume

Manufacturing

Market Launch

Front End NPD Execution

ONGOING Product & Portfolio Strategy Formulation and Feedback

Continue/

No Go

DecisionPreliminary

Opportunity

Identification:

Idea Generation,

Market &

Technology

Analysis

Product &

Portfolio Strategy

Pre-Phase Zero

(ongoing)

Ideation

Figure 5 : Le modèle pour la phase floue amont d’après Khurana et

Rosenthal (basé sur [KHU1998])

Dans ce modèle, notre vue de la phase d’idéation correspond à la « Pre-Phase

Zéro », et ne comprend ni la création d’un concept de produit (Phase Zéro), ni

la planification du projet NPD. Khurana et Rosenthal soulignent que


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l’organisation, la culture, la stratégie et d’autres facteurs de l’environnement

dans lequel le processus d’innovation se déroule, jouent un rôle très important

pour le succès des activités du FFE. Ceci est en parfait accord avec l’objectif

clé de notre recherche, ainsi qu’avec le concept de la maison d’innovation selon

A.T. Kearney, introduite précédemment.

5 Questions clés de recherche

La délimitation et cette positionnement du terme « idéation » a été un pas

essentiellement important pour notre recherche, car il nous a permis de nous

focaliser sur la tâche pour avancer là où il y a encore un véritable vide dans les

résultats de recherche publiés : comment mettre l’idéation dans un processus

structuré qui la rende gérable, sans nuire à la créativité et à la dynamique qui

lui est intrinsèque ?

Sont associées à cette question principale de recherche les sous-questions

suivantes :

1) D’ou viennent les nouvelles idées?

2) Quelles sources internes et externes sont particulièrement pertinentes à

l’idéation?

3) Quelle culture organisationnelle facilite l’idéation ?

4) Est-il possible de mesurer le succès d’idées, et comment?

5) Comment les entreprises du secteur automobile et d’autres secteurs font-

elles pour structure leur processus d’idéation?

6) Quelles meilleures pratiques en gestion d’idéation existent?

7) Quelles expériences doivent être prises en compte lors de la création et

implémentation du processus d’idéation?

8) Quelles interfaces et responsabilités sont nécessaires pour la génération et

sélection d’idées?

9) Quels autres processus, méthodes et systèmes sont connectés avec le

processus d’idéation (processus de prise de décision, voies de

communication, idées refusées, etc.)?

Afin de pouvoir répondre à ces questions pratiques et théoriques qui se posent

dans le contexte de notre recherche, nous avons choisi une démarche basée sur

la théorie fondée sur la recherche documentaire et des entrevues d’experts et sa

validation dans un environnement réel. La figure 6 visualise cette démarche.


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Grounded Theory

Case Study

Literature Review of

Innovation Theory and

Best Practices

External Expert

Interviews

Analysis of

Research Data

General Ideation

Process Model

Corporate Situation

Analysis

Company-specific

Ideation Process

Internal Expert

Interviews

Indicators and

Assessment Criteria

Internal Expert

Interviews

Company-specific

Indicators and

Assessment Criteria

Figure 6 : Cadre conceptuel de recherche en idéation

En particulier, nous soulignons l’importance des entrevues d’experts externes et

internes pour connaitre et comprendre les pratiques actuelles en idéation dans

les entreprises du secteur automobile et autres. Nous avons constaté qu’il est

impossible de trouver ces informations dans la littérature, car l’idéation telles

que nous l’avons définie est un sujet assez jeune et surtout hautement

compétitif et confidentiel pour un secteur où l’innovation « fermée » domine

toujours sur le terrain.

6 Méthodologie de recherche

Les questions de recherche et le principe de l’approche étant bien définis, nous

nous sommes posé la question de la meilleure méthodologie qui nous amènerait

d’abord à la définition d’un processus d’idéation de référence à partir des

résultats de recherche issus de la littérature et des entrevues d’experts, ensuite à

la spécification d’un processus spécifique pour l’entreprise sous investigation.

Il était évident qu’il ne fallait pas simplement appliquer un processus vécu dans

une entreprise dans une autre. Les bonnes pratiques d’une organisation ne sont

pas forcément bonnes dans une autre, car le contexte change : les acteurs, leur

environnement, leur culture, leurs besoins et contraintes, etc. Au lieu de cela,

nous avons décidé d’adopter une démarche courante en mathématique pour

trouver une ou la solution d’un problème qui est difficilement à résoudre dans


254

un espace donné : la transformation du problème dans un autre espace ou sa

résolution est plus facile, puis la re-transformation de la solution dans l’espace

d’origine. Dans notre contexte de recherche particulier cette démarche se

traduit par les étapes suivantes :

1) L’identification et l’analyse des bonnes pratiques de l’idéation dans une

sélection d’entreprises (espace « entreprise »).

2) La dérivation des facteurs clés du succès des bonnes pratiques identifiées

(espace facteurs de succès, indépendant d’entreprise).

3) La mise en contexte des facteurs clés dans une entreprise cible donnée

(espace « entreprise »).

Cette démarche de « re-contextualisation » de la connaissance via un espace

« neutre » est démontrée en figure 7. Cette figure représente notre véritable

feuille de route de notre recherche et par conséquence détermine également la

structure des sections suivantes de ce manuscrit.

Case S

tudy

Literature Review

SuppliersOEMs InnovatorsFuzzy Front-

End Research

Innovation

ManagementNPD Research

Success Factor

No. 1

Success Factor

No. 2

Success Factor

No. 3

Success Factor

No. 4

Success Factor

No. …

Success Factor

No. n

Expert Interviews

Best Practices


KSPGIdeation Process

KSPGInnovation Database

KSPGOrganisation

Figure 7 : Méthodologie de recherche


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7 Résultats de recherche

7.1 Recherche documentaire

Quant à la recherche dans la littérature, nous avons suivi une approche très

systématique pour faire face à la pluridisciplinarité de notre sujet qui touche

aux trois disciplines suivantes :

1) les sciences sociales,

2) les sciences économiques,

3) les sciences de l’ingénieur.

Cette démarche est montrée en figure 8.


FEE Models

Success Factors

of Ideation Process

Fuzzy Front-End ResearchSuccess Factor Research in


New Product Development

Research

Success Factors

for Idea Generation

and Selection

Design of

Processes

NPD Processes

Success Factors

for Starting NPD

Process

Design of

Processes

Indicators and

Assessment

Criteria

Success Factors for

Overall Innovation

Success

Success Factors for

Idea Generation

and Selection

Success Factors

for Innovative

Business Environment

Strong Influence

Small Influence

Indicators and

Assessment

Criteria

Link

Figure 8 : Concept systématique pour la recherche documentaire

En synthèse, cette recherche a donné les résultats suivants :

1) Dans le contexte d’idéation, les sciences sociales s’occupent notamment de

la créativité des individus et des groupes, sujet qui n’est pas notre première

priorité. Nous nous occupons de la mise en valeur de la créativité des

individus d’une organisation étendue pour un objectif particulier.

2) Les sciences économiques s’occupent du succès économique des

innovations, sans remonter à l’origine de celles-ci.


256

3) Dans les sciences d’ingénieur, il y a une quantité importante des travaux

sur le sujet NPD avec des résultats très intéressants pour nous. Vu que le

processus d’idéation précède le NPD l’on peut le considérer comme étape

préparatrice de ce dernier. Par conséquence, toute mesure prise dans le

processus d’idéation qui sert à influencer les facteurs de succès du NPD de

manière positive, contribue aux facteurs de succès du processus d’idéation.

Khurana, Rosenthal et Ernst ont établi la référence des facteurs clés du succès

du NPD avec leurs publications [KHU1998] et [ERN2002]. Elles nous ont

servies comme source principale pour la dérivation de facteurs clés de succès

d’idéation à partir des résultats de recherche en NPD.

7.2 Entrevues d’experts

Par manque d’informations publiées sur les bonnes pratiques d’idéation, nous

avons mené une série d’entrevues d’experts grâce au support de l’entreprise de

conseil, celle-ci possédant des contacts clés parmi les experts en innovation

chez la plupart des entreprises que nous avons choisies. Le tableau 2 donne une

vue ensemble de ces entreprises pour lesquelles nous n’avons pas l’autorisation

de mentionner les noms pour des raisons de confidentialité.

Target

Group Scope Reason for sampling

Data collection

procedures Companies

1

German

automotive

OEMs

German automotive

industry is regarded

as innovation leader

in the industry

Access available to

interview

participants or

secondary data

Interviews

Analyses of

various

publications

from relevant

congresses

OEM 1

OEM 2

OEM 3

OEM 4

2

Successful

German

automotive

suppliers (Tier 1

supplier)

The case study’s

company belongs to

this segment

Comparison is

interesting and

necessary

Interviews

Analyses of

various

publications

from relevant

congresses

Supplier 1

Supplier 2

Supplier 3


257

3

Worldwide

recognised

innovation leaders,

non-sector-specific

Inspiration from

interdisciplinary

perspectives on

other industries

Interviews

Analyses of

various

publications

from relevant

congresses

Innovator 1

Innovator 2

Innovator 3

Innovator 4

Innovator 5

Innovator 6

Tableau 2 : Enquête par des entrevues d’experts externes

Toutes ces entrevues ont été menées par les membres de l’équipe de recherche

avec le support d’un questionnaire complémenté par un guide détaillé. Elles ont

été transcrites de manière séparée afin d’assurer la fiabilité « inter-rater »

[ARM1997]. Les résultats ont été compilés dans un rapport, analysés et

consolidés lors de deux ateliers d’équipe. Vue la nature qualitative de cette

activité nous avons fait une synthèse qui nous avons incluse dans la

spécification du processus d’idéation.

7.3 Les six facteurs clefs du succès de l’idéation

Ici nous nous limitons à la présentation des facteurs clés du succès que nous

avons ainsi identifié, ceux-ci étant les éléments essentiels pour la conception du

processus d’idéation.

1) Facteur clé de succès no. 1 (S1):

L’idéation commence au top management.

L’appel et la profession de foi de la part du top management pour l’idéation

sont essentiels et doivent être clairement visibles et compréhensibles par

tous les employés.


L’idéation demande une focalisation clairement définie et communiquée.

L’analyse systémique et systématique de la situation globale de l’entreprise

et sa stratégie est nécessaire pour identifier les champs d’action d’idéation

qui ensuite doivent être communiqués à travers de l’organisation entière.


L’idéation se fait en réseau.

L’intégration des acteurs internes et externes évite les innovations de type

“moi aussi” et augmente le potentiel d’innovation.



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L’idéation demande de la créativité.

La promotion de la créativité et son intégration dans les processus

d’entreprise augmente la qualité et la quantité des idées.


L’idéation a besoin d’esprit d’entrepreneur.

Déclencher et pousser la compétition portant sur les idées et leur marketing

dans l’entreprise augmente le niveau de maturité des idées et leur qualité.


L’Idéation a besoin d’orientation organisationnelle-

Les processus ciblés avec des critères d’évaluation clairs et précis facilitent

la communication et la conversion des idées.

Tous ces facteurs contribuent à la base à la création d’une culture d’innovation

ouverte qui facilite l’intégration de nombreux acteurs dans le processus

d’idéation permettant ainsi de valoriser leurs observations, expériences,

expertises, et créativité.

7.4 Le processus d’idéation de référence

L’un des modèles de processus les plus établis dans l’industrie [COO1990],

[COO1991], [RUN2002] et [WHI1998] est le modèle « étape – points de

décision » (« stage-gate » en anglais) par Cooper [COO2011]. Il est implémenté

dans toutes les entreprises du secteur automobile en Europe, mais aussi chez

3M, Procter & Gamble, Hewlett Packard [VER2007b] et beaucoup d’autres. La

caractéristique principale de ce modèle est sa composition de plusieurs étapes

multifonctionnelles dont chaque une est suivie par un point de décision

décidant de la transition vers la prochaine étape.

Notre objectif principal pour la modélisation du processus d’idéation de

référence était d’arriver à une projection claire et simple des six facteurs clés

identifiés pour chaque étape et point de décision de manière que chacun de ces

facteurs puisse être implémenté dans toute l’organisation spécifique. A ce but,

nous avons conçu le processus affiché en figure 9.


259

Prerequisite Generation SelectionImpulse

Transfer

to other

processStart of

innovation

Prerequisite

fulfilled

Generation

finished

Ideas

selected

Deferred Ideas with future potential

1. Internal

analysis

2. External

analysis

3. Innovation

strategy

4. Top

management

commitment

5. Target

agreement

6. Resource

commitment

1. Stakeholder

management

2. Network

management

3. Partner

management

4. Ideation tool

box

5. Guided

ideation

6. Wild card

ideation

1. Idea

communication

2. Idea

assessment

3. Idea transfer

Opportunity Idea

Figure 9 : Processus d’idéation de référence

Le tableau 3 montre les tâches à achever dans chaque étape, ainsi que la

correspondance avec les facteurs clés de succès.

Ideation Process Phase Ideation Activities Success Factors

Prerequisite

Internal Analysis

S1 and S2

External Analysis

Innovation Strategies


Target Agreement

Resource Commitment

Generation

Stakeholder Management

S3 and S4

Network Management

Partner Management

Ideation Tool Box

Guided Ideation

Wild Card Ideation

Selection

Idea Communication

S5 and S6 Idea Assessment

Idea Transfer

Tableau 3 : Correspondance des facteurs clés de succès avec les étapes du

processus de référence d’idéation

La première étape, dédiée à la mise en place des conditions préalables pour

l’idéation, contient beaucoup de tâches basées sur des activités qui se font dans

le cadre du management stratégique de toute entreprise. Par conséquence,

l’effort pour les implémenter est considérablement réduit. La deuxième étape


260

est intégralement consacrée à faciliter au maximum la création d’idées en

réseau d’acteurs internes et externes. Grâce à l’idéation « joker » (« Wild Card

Ideation » en figure 9) il devient possible pour les acteurs d’introduire des idées

exceptionnelles, voire révolutionnaires, qui sortent des contraintes imposées par

l’étape d’avant dans le processus, tenant ainsi compte de la spontanéité

intrinsèque de l’objet cible du processus.

Nous rappelons également que ce processus de référence ne comporte aucun

élément qui est véritablement spécifique au secteur automobile.

7.5 Implémentation et validation du processus chez KSPG

Notre objectif est de valider notre processus d’idéation de référence dans

plusieurs entreprises de différents secteurs industriels. Le contexte de cette

thèse nous a permis de faire une première validation chez le sous-traitant

automobile KSPG.

Vue la nature hautement compétitive et stratégique transformant la culture

d’innovation de l’entreprise, chaque projet de validation est

sujet à de longues négociations avec le top management,

un projet qui nécessite des investissements financiers à travers

l’organisation entière,

un projet dont les effets ne sont visibles et évaluables que sur le moyen

voire longue terme,

un projet qui implique une très grande partie de l’organisation de

l’entreprise,

un processus de transformation de la culture organisationnelle de

l’entreprise.

Tous ces facteurs rendent l’acquis, le lancement, et l’accompagnement d’un tel

projet difficile et intensif en investissement de temps et d’efforts. Par

conséquence, il faut tirer un maximum d’expériences et d’inspirations de

chaque projet pour pouvoir valider le processus.

Au départ du projet, le processus de gestion d’innovation actuel chez KSPG

AG est lié au « KSPG Advanced Development Process » (ADP, processus de

développement avancé), processus consacré au développement des nouveaux

produits jusqu’au point où ces produits puissent être développés selon le

« Product Development Process » (PDP, processus de développement de

produits) spécifique à chaque division de l’entreprise. L’ADP ainsi que les PDP

sont clairement définis selon le modèle étape – points de décision y compris les


261

outils correspondants. La gestion d’innovation est sous la responsabilité est

sous la responsabilité d’un manager d’innovation, lui-même un employé du

département Ingénierie Avancée de la division centrale Recherche et

Technologie. Il est responsable de la collection, sélection, et évaluation des

idées de produits et du démarrage d’ADP pour leur réalisation [RIE2009c] et

[DRA2010].

Ce processus est en accord avec la « chaine de valeur d’idées » selon Hansen et

Birkinshaw [HAN2007]. La figure 10 démontre la relation entre les différents

processus chez KSPG AG, ainsi que leur correspondance avec la chaine de

valeur d'innovation. Sont également indiqués les niveaux de maitrise des étapes

et activités de la chaine, tels qu’ils étaient aperçus par le management au départ

de notre projet. On peut constater sans aucune ambiguïté que la gestion de

création d’idées de produits était considérée comme inexistante. Elle ne

consistait que d’un appel annuel par email aux employés de la division R&D

pour des propositions de nouveaux produits et d’améliorations des produits

existants. Une base de données (« Innovation Database » en figure 10) servait à

la collecte et la sélection des idées par un cercle fermé des managers de la

division R&D, ce mode de sélection impliquant trop peu d’experts ce qui est

également considéré comme un point faible qu’il fallait améliorer [BOO2011].

Innovation

Valu

e C

hain IDEA GENERATION

In-HouseCross-

PollinationExternal

CONVERSION


DIFFUSION

Internal

Spread

External

Spread

?? ? +

Input: Ideas Output: Products

Application-related

(Division Responsibility)

Development-related

(AD Responsibility)

AD Project Proposals

once a year

3.

PDP

ADP

Tool: Innovation Database for

Rating & Processing


Ranking

IdeasSelection

Transfer

to ADP

Patent Attorneys

Ideas put back

Rejected ideas

2.

Idea Collection

by Innovation Management

Curr

ent

Innovation M

an

agem

ent

at

KS

PG

1.

Figure 10 : Processus de gestion d’innovation actuel chez KSPG AG

La hiérarchie de la division R&D souhaitait donc structurer, gérer la génération

d’idées et améliorer la sélection de ces dernières. C’est un cas d’étude parfait

pour valider notre approche, en partant d’un processus de génération d’idées

facilitant l’implémentation des facteurs clé de succès d’idéation dans une

organisation spécifique donnée. Pour ce faire, notre approche doit parcourir les

étapes suivantes :


262

1) Identification des champs d’action prioritaires par l’analyse du niveau

d’implémentation de chaque facteur clé du succès d’idéation dans le

processus actuellement existant chez l’entreprise.

2) Identification des éléments organisationnels de l’entreprise nécessaires

pour réaliser chaque étape et point de décision du processus d’idéation de

référence.

3) Conception d’une spécifique incarnation du processus d’idéation de

référence qui prend en compte l’implémentation de

a) tous les facteurs clés de succès d’idéation, ainsi que

b) tous les champs d’action prioritaires identifiés en étape 1

avec les éléments organisationnels identifiés en étape 2.

4) Démonstration de la faisabilité du nouveau processus.

5) Proposition d’un concept d’introduction du processus dans l’organisation

existante.

6) Accompagnement du processus d’introduction, amélioration du processus

de référence et du processus spécifique grâce au retour d’expérience.

Notre projet ayant commencé en mars 2012, nous avons au jour de la rédaction

finale de ce manuscrit parcouru toutes les étapes 1 à 5 avec la grande

satisfaction de la hiérarchie. Le démarrage de la dernière étape 6 est prévu en

automne 2012.

Ici nous présentons en figure 11 la vue ensemble du processus tel que nous

l’avons conçu et qu’il a été accepté par la hiérarchie de la division R&D de

KSPG AG. Ce processus correspond exactement aux standards de

représentation des processus dans l’entreprise, et précède désormais son

processus ADP (figure 12). Chaque étape, action, et point de décision

correspond à un ou plusieurs facteurs clés du succès, et/ou un champ d’action

prioritaire identifié lors de l’étape 1. Conformément aux standards de qualité de

l’entreprise, des documents et modèles ont été créés pour l’intégralité des

réunions prévues, ainsi que la plupart des tâches et outils. La prise en compte

des documents et processus existants dans l’entreprise fut un élément essentiel

pour faciliter l’introduction du nouveau processus et la transformation de la

culture d’idéation dans l’entreprise.

En parallèle, nous avons démontré la faisabilité de ce résultat en l’appliquant à

petite échelle sur le sujet de la mobilité électrique, objet des investigations

stratégiques importantes chez KSPG.


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Figure 11 : Processus d’idéation pour KSPG AG

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Entire Innovation Process at KSPG

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La validation à grande échelle se fera à partir d’automne 2012 quand la

campagne d’idées pour les nouveaux produits et services, ainsi que

l’amélioration des produits existants qui sera lancée au niveau de toute

l’organisation.

8 Bilan des apports pour la recherche académique

Nous avons réussi à combler le trou qui existait entre la recherche sur la

créativité pour la génération des idées et leur valorisation dans une organisation

industrielle pilotée par des processus bien structurés. Ainsi nos travaux se

situent au carrefour des sciences d’ingénieur, des sciences économiques, et des

sciences sociales. La notion de l’idéation qui nourrit le processus de gestion de

l’innovation est l’élément au centre de ce carrefour en faisant le lien entre les

trois disciplines concernées.

Nous avons notamment établi un lien entre la recherche en NPD, en gestion de

l’innovation et en idéation. Ceci dans un contexte industriel qui nous a amené à

produire des résultats académiques qui sont directement applicables aux

contextes industriels. Ces résultats, comprenant un cadre générique et des

instructions et lignes directrices pour le remplir, sont suffisamment génériques

pour pouvoir être valorisés dans un environnement économique spécifique. Ils

ont donc le potentiel de donner lieu à de nombreux projets de recherche et de

validation dans une multitude de contextes différentes.


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9 Bilan des apports pour l’application industrielle

Les facteurs de succès d’idéation et le processus de référence d’idéation que

nous avons établis facilitent pour les entreprises la construction par eux-mêmes

d’un processus de gestion d’idées, bien adapté à leurs besoins et leurs

spécificités d’organisation et de culture. Ils donnent aussi des outils précieux

pour des experts consultants qui accompagnent les entreprises au long du

chemin dès l’identification des besoins, la conception du processus spécifique,

son implémentation, évaluation et amélioration. Ceci présente une aide

fondamentale pour un projet qui implique à la fois la mise en fonctionnement

d’un nouveau processus, et le changement de culture d’innovation.

Nos résultats donnent également une base solide pour la collecte régulière des

retours d’expérience pour bâtir une base de connaissance sur les valeurs qui

intéressent les industriels, telles que

les efforts requis pour les différentes phases d’introduction du processus et

leur durée,

la durée de chaque étape du processus,

les investissements,

les taux d’amélioration faisables avec le temps,

etc.

10 Perspectives pour la recherche académique

10.1 Evaluation du processus de la phase floue amont

Nous considérons le potentiel de cette recherche très important, notamment car

il y a peu de travaux comparables qui s’occupent de la phase amont du

processus d’innovation. Dans la littérature, cette phase de la naissance et de

maturation est considérée comme la phase floue amont de l’innovation, dû au

fait qu’elle se passe de manière peu, voire pas, gérable dans les entreprises.

Après évaluation, les idées issues de cette phase entrent dans une chaine de

différents processus bien spécifiés, que les dirigeants savent bien gérer, et qui

génèrent les indicateurs de performance en innovation de l’entreprise. Sous la

pression d’un besoin d’innovation fortement croissant, les grandes entreprises

réalisent la valeur de cette phase amont pour « nourrir » ces processus avec des

idées qui peuvent être transformées en innovation. Les dirigeants cherchent

donc des moyens qui leur permettent de gérer cette phase de manière similaire


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aux autres phases d’innovation. Pour pouvoir gérer ce processus, il est

nécessaire

de structurer cette phase pour qu’elle se déroule selon un processus bien

défini,

de définir des indicateurs qui permettent d’évaluer sa performance, ainsi

que

les mesures et outils requis pour pouvoir évaluer ces indicateurs.

Or, la plupart des indicateurs utilisés à ce jour pour évaluer la performance en

innovation d’entreprise ne sont pas appropriés à donner une mesure fiable et

utile pour pouvoir gérer et améliorer le processus de génération et maturation

d’idées. Il faut donc rechercher d’autres indicateurs, et valider leurs aptitudes.

En outre, la structuration de la phase de la création d’idées posera plusieurs

autres nouvelles questions de recherche :

1) Dans quelle mesure peut-on « forcer » la phase la plus créative dans une

structure sans restreindre la créativité, au contraire l’augmenter ?

2) Comment peut-on mesurer l’impact de chaque étape de processus à la

création d’idées ?

3) Quels sont les outils les plus aptes à soutenir les acteurs dans chaque

étape ?

4) Quelles sont les critères qui permettent de bien estimer le temps et l’effort

qu’il faut pour faire vivre le processus dans une organisation particulière ?

10.2 Intégration des acteurs

Dans le cadre de cette thèse nous avons identifié que certaines méthodes de

management d’idées ont été établies pour gérer les idées d’amélioration des

processus internes dans le cadre des efforts pour l’amélioration continue. Or

typiquement, les idées pour de nouveaux produits et services de l’entreprise ne

sont pas traitées par ces méthodes qui s’adressent ouvertement à tous les

employées. Au contraire, l’innovation est considérée comme sujet de quelques

employés seulement, ceux-ci souvent dans des positions dirigeantes. Le sujet au

cœur de la thèse est l’hypothèse que l’intégration de différents experts dans le

processus d’innovation, et plus particulièrement dans la création et évaluation

idées, doit contribuer de manière significative à l’augmentation du nombre, de

la « qualité » et de la pertinence des idées reçues. Dû aux contraintes de

l’entreprise et du temps qu’il faut pour faire vivre un nouveau processus dans

une grande organisation, nous n’avons pu valider cette hypothèse qu’à petite

échelle. On devrait donc lancer des projets de recherche comparables dans


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plusieurs entreprises, les accompagner et les instrumentaliser afin de pouvoir en

tirer des statistiques permettant d’évaluer de manière quantitative l’effet de

l’intégration de différents experts.

En outre, nous pensons que ces effets jouent aussi un rôle significatif dans la

durabilité des innovations issues des idées crées, évaluées et développées par

des acteurs qui interviennent dans plusieurs phases différentes du cycle de vie

du produit. Car notamment grâce à leurs expériences et points de vue différents,

ils peuvent aider à assurer que les idées et leurs réalisations remplissent le

mieux possible les critères qui sont décisifs pour leur succès. Cette question

nous amène directement à l’innovation ouverte, un des sujets actuels phares de

la recherche en innovation : on peut s’imaginer que des acteurs extérieurs de

l’organisation interne de l’entreprise participent eux aussi à la création et

évaluation des idées. Nous pensons notamment aux clients, fournisseurs, et aux

partenaires de recherche et développement. Même les compétiteurs et les

expériences de leurs clients avec leurs produits peuvent être une source

intéressante pour de nouvelles idées. Pour en profiter, il faut trouver une façon

de les intégrer dans le processus de création d’idées sans mettre en danger la

compétitivité et la confidentialité.

10.3 Evaluation d’idées

Afin de ne pas restreindre la créativité des acteurs concernés, il faut considérer

toute idée comme bonne et pertinente pour un sujet défini au départ du

processus. Pourtant, suivant le budget disponible, il faudra prioriser les idées

qui ont le plus grand potentiel pour faire le sujet d’une innovation, sans pour

autant perdre les autres. Par conséquence, il est nécessaire de définir et

communiquer les critères d’évaluation des idées en amont. Or, quels sont ces

critères ? Est-ce qu’il y a d’autres mesures que le chiffre d’affaires que

l’innovation issue d’une idée pourra apporter ? Sont cherchés les mesures et

indicateurs qui permettent d’évaluer le potentiel d’une idée pour de nombreux

point de vue tels que marché, organisation, image de marque, vue long terme,

stratégie de l’entreprise etc. Il faut aussi donner aux acteurs les moyens et outils

pour calculer ces indicateurs et pouvoir les représenter de manière apte pour les

décideurs. Nous avons vu qu’il y a de nombreuses idées qui meurent faute de

connaissance et d’utilisation de ces dernières.

10.4 Facteurs clés de succès

On devra aussi sans doute mener une enquête approfondie par rapport aux

méthodes et facteurs clés de gestion d’idées appliqués par les entreprises

innovantes de différents secteurs. Nous avons commencé une telle enquête dans

le cadre de la thèse, mais à petite échelle et avec un focus sur les entreprises


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allemandes du secteur automobile. Je considère l’identification de ces facteurs

de succès indispensable pour concevoir et mettre en œuvre un processus de

création d’idées qui prenne en compte toutes les spécificités de l’entreprise

ciblée. La conception d’un processus spécifique au contexte autour de ces

facteurs permettra d’éviter de copier un processus d’une entreprise à l’autre, ce

qui comporte des risques d’échec graves. Dû à la confidentialité de ce sujet, peu

de choses ont été publiées. Par conséquence, une approche basée sur les

entrevues d’experts me semble la plus adaptée à cette problématique. Grâce à la

« neutralité » des doctorants leur donnant un accès plus facile aux responsables

d’innovation, ceci pourrait bien se faire dans le cadre d’une ou plusieurs

nouvelles thèses.

10.5 Influences culturelles

Comme nous je l’ai expliqué dans l’introduction de ce projet de recherche, le

contexte du projet nous a amené à investiguer une approche à l’idéation pilotée

par un processus clairement structurée et supportée par de outils bien définis et

approuvés. Dans les sciences sociales et les sciences de management

d’entreprise il est bien connu qu’il y a d’autres approches à l’idéation et la

gestion de l’innovation qui sont nettement moins structurées. Globalement, on

constate que ces approches sociales sont courantes dans les pays orientaux,

alors que les approches structurées selon le modèle des « étapes – points de

décision » sont caractéristiques pour les pays occidentaux [GAU2007].

Il serait intéressant d’investiguer la validité des facteurs clés de l’idéation

identifiés et de trouver de bons moyens et de bonnes recettes pour implémenter

ces facteurs dans des organisations qui ne sont pas ou peu pilotées par des

processus. Est-ce possible ? Est-ce nécessaire ? Comment le pendant du

processus de référence pourrait-il se présenter ? Quels sont ses apports, ses

valeurs ajoutées ?

Là aussi, il faudra ensuite se poser la question des bons indicateurs et outils

d’évaluation de ces derniers.

11 Perspectives pour l’application industrielle

11.1 Suivi intégral de l’introduction et application du processus

Le processus d’idéation proposé doit être mis en œuvre dans une organisation

donnée comme une boucle de régulation. On ne connaitra le bon

fonctionnement du système commandé et de toute la boucle qu’après ils aient


269

été implémentés en intégralité, et après quelques boucles de marche. Or, la mise

en marche de cette boucle est un processus plus ou moins longue et intensif en

investissions financières et ressources humaines.

Il est donc absolument nécessaire de suivre et – tant que c’est souhaité par le

management – accompagner l’entreprise sur le chemin d’introduction du

processus, en observant l’évolution de la performance d’idéation et les

indicateurs concernés, ainsi qu’en ajustant les paramètres du processus pour le

contrôler et l’optimiser. Il faut en faire plusieurs expériences pour arriver aux

estimations fondées des coûts, des efforts, et problèmes typiques qui peuvent

être entrainés, connaissances essentiellement importantes pour les décideurs.

C’est l’étape qui succédera directement nos travaux de recherche et conseil

chez cette entreprise. Nous aurons un rôle clé dans ce projet, nous permettant

de contribuer nous-mêmes à la validation et amélioration des résultats de notre

recherche.

11.2 Application aux différents secteurs industriels

Tandis que nous avons menés nos travaux dans l’environnement d’un sous-

traitant de l’industrie automobile, nous avons opté pour des résultats qui soient

applicables avec succès dans d’autres secteurs. La méthodologie que nous

avons choisie en fait la preuve. Pourtant, nous n’avons pas encore eu ni

l’occasion ni les moyens pour appliquer notre approche aux autres entreprises,

ceci donnant lieu à un défi en complément de futures travaux de recherche.

Avant tout, l’on devrait vérifier si les facteurs clés du succès d’idéation tels que

nous les avons définis sont aussi pertinents dans des secteurs autres que

l’automobile, et s’il y a d’autres facteurs à prendre en compte.

On pourrait envisager la proposition des facteurs secondaires ou lignes

directrices par secteur industriel, qui aideraient à la dérivation d’une

incarnation du processus d’idéation de référence pour une entreprise d’un

secteur spécifique.

Le top management d’une autre entreprise mondiale hors secteur automobile

s’intéresse déjà sérieusement à l’implémentation de notre processus d’idéation

chez eux.

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Résumé

Sous la pression croissante de l'innovation, les entreprises sont plus que jamais

obligées de s’occuper de la gestion de l'innovation, et plus particulièrement la

génération systématique et la sélection des idées. Ceci s’applique en particulier

aux secteurs technologiques tels que l'automobile.

L’idéation signifie la procédure de la génération et sélection des idées pour les

innovations de nouveaux produits, services où modèles d’affaires avec un

potentiel commercial sur le marché. Elle se situe au début de la phase floue

amont (« fuzzy front-end », FFE) du processus de l'innovation et détermine le

processus de développement de nouveaux produits (« New Product

Development », NPD).

Dans ce contexte, cette thèse vise à répondre à la question de recherche

suivante: « Comment est-il possible de créer une approche structurée qui fait de

l’idéation la tâche principale de la FFE et l’implémenter comme processus dans

un environnement d'entreprise pour faciliter la gestion de l'innovation? » À cet

objectif, la principale contribution de ce travail est un modèle « étape – points

de décision » (« stage-gate » en anglais) d’un processus d’idéation de référence

qui est basé sur un ensemble des facteurs clés de succès identifiés dans la

littérature et des entrevues d'experts.

Le modèle de processus d’idéation de référence proposé s’appuie sur

l’intégration forte et systématique des acteurs internes et externes dans

l'idéation et intègre ainsi intrinsèquement le paradigme modern de l'Innovation

Ouverte. Il a été conçu de manière qu’il puisse être intégré dans les processus

d'innovation existants avec des efforts raisonnables, et qu’il assure l’alignement

des activités d'idéation avec la stratégie commerciale de l'entreprise.

La validation du modèle de processus de référence proposé a été faite chez le

sous-traitant automobile allemand KSPG Automotive Group essentiellement

par la dérivation d'un processus spécifique à cette entreprise à partir du

processus de référence. Ce processus dérivé prend en compte le contexte

spécifique de l'innovation et l'idéation chez cette entreprise et facilite par

conséquence son intégration dans la culture organisationnelle de l'entreprise et

son paysage de processus.

Dans le cadre de cette thèse, la faisabilité de l'approche globale ainsi que le

processus d'idéation lui-même ont été validés, et un concept pour l'introduction

du nouveau processus a été établi. Sur cette base solide sont données des

perspectives pour les prochaines activités de recherche qui sont directement

liées à l'introduction et l'amélioration du processus, ainsi que la détermination

de l'applicabilité de l'approche dans d’autres secteurs industriels.

272

Abstract

Under the rapidly increasing innovation pressure, companies are forced—more

than ever before—to deal with the subject of innovation management,

particularly with systematic idea generation and selection. This is especially

true in technology-driven sectors such as automotive.

Ideation denotes the procedure of idea generation and selection for innovations

of products, services or business models with commercialisation potential on

the market. It is located in the very beginning of the fuzzy front-end (FFE) of

the entire innovation process and sets the course for New Product Development

(NPD).

In this context, this work attempts to answer the following research question:

“How is it possible to create a structured approach which makes ideation the

core task of the FFE, and to implement it as a process in a corporate

environment such that it facilitates innovation management?” To this aim, its

principal contribution is an ideation stage-gate reference process model based

on a set of key success factors identified from literature and expert interviews.

The proposed ideation reference process model capitalises on the strong and

systematic involvement of internal and external stakeholders in ideation, and

therefore follows intrinsically the modern paradigm of Open Innovation. It is

designed in a way that can be integrated in existing innovation processes with

reasonable effort, and it assures the alignment of ideation activities with the

company’s business strategy.

The validation of the proposed reference process model has been done at the

German automotive supplier KSPG Automotive Group based on the derivation

of a company-specific ideation process from the reference process. This derived

process takes into account the company’s specific context of innovation and

ideation, and is consequently focused on facilitating its integration into the

company’s organisational culture and process landscape while introducing a

fundamentally new approach to systematic ideation activities.

In the scope of this thesis, the feasibility of the total approach as well as the

ideation process itself has been demonstrated, and a concept for the broad

introduction of the new process has been established. On this solid basis,

perspectives for future research activities directly linked to the introduction and

the improvement of the process, as well as to the determination of the

applicability of the approach in different industry sectors are given.